I really do hope that Yuneec and this new flight controller + software can give them a boost. I am a fan of the Open Architecture model as a theory, however market forces outside of the concerns of who has initial and continued development authorization and oversight, can trump a "better mouse trap." Auterion and Dronecode are as good of a code and silicon development team that you can find as an alternative to the 900lbs Gorilla aka. DJI.
I have first hand experience with the Motorola versus Intel versus Apple microprocessor wars of the early and mid 1980's. In fact IBM had 2 different PC designs up and running, 1 based on Intel and 1 based on Motorola microprocessors. And some of us might remember the CPM versus DOS days too. The dynamics behind early market share and revenue generation do not always favor the perceived better design.
For instance anyone interested might look into the NeXT computer that Steve Jobs designed during the time that he was letting Scully run his company (sarcasim intended). It was a huge Software technology leap and although initially developed on Motorola architecture the software was ported onto different architectures such as the SUN SPARC processor.
It would be nice if Intel opened up their checkbook and design teams to finish what they tried to help Yuneec with, RealSense avoidance detection capability which so far has been only minimally proficient in helping these aircraft keep from crashing. And one can also hope that the development teams have provided the flight controllers and sensor packages with bullet proof code at least much more dependable than 3DR went to market with.
It is highly doubtful that Yuneec or any other drone manufacturer will equal the revenue generation of DJI with similar aircraft and targeted markets. And this market saturation of DJI continues to grow regardless of how often buggy firmware (software) versions are released. DJI has an inherent advantage in that their customer base is the worlds largest BETA firmware testing pool of users. That fact does nothing to push DJI to provide quick or even fully functional fixes regardless of how many customers they TEE off.
So Yuneec needs to do something different or better to gain momentum. Different would be a working obstacle identification and avoidance sensor package based on the Artificial Intelligence machine vision processors from their Movidius operation. Better would be rock solid flight controller firmware and or quickly fixed bug reports. Better would also include a better customer service interface and followup, not a very high bar established by DJI in that area.
Well enough for the rant, but I am forced to do business with a foreign government supported corporation that represents a potential long term hostile threat. That would obviously be the same situation if I choose to buy Yuneec aircraft. However I would much prefer to have a strong alternative that is based on Open Source principles. And absolutely no back door access to your flight data and all the geo-refrerenced images/video taken of our homeland and critical infrastructure. So we shall see if this H520 design reboot is a winning strategy for Yuneec and additional future products.