Reflecting on yesterdays plenary presentation at the AGI, and the report of it at ZDNet which completely ignored the presentations from the boring old vendors ESRI and myself!!, you would expect there to be much upset and insecurity as we all wave farewell to the GIS industry of the past replaced by the mainstream vendors…
I do sense a little bit of a wobble, but –
Of course the reality is that all the “new” exciting vendors Google, Microsoft, Yahoo etc are all reliant on the data produced by the primary data providers, who in turn need to use the tools and models created by the boring old vendors. This has become know as the “heavy lifting” part of the industry, it may not be glamourous and may be missed by the mainstream press but it represents the vast majority of activity undertaken using geographic information.
So thank you Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for doing what the GIS industry should have done, in making Geographic Information more accessible with simple, well designed tools – the rockets of the Geographic information, but the “professional” industry needs to now work even harder in providing the fuel !!!
Written and submitted from Starbucks, Upper Street , London, using the t-mobile wifi network.
