GIS and Business Intelligence Integration: ESRI and IBI tighten product suites

Last week, ESRI and Information Builders Inc. (IBI) announced that they were providing tighter integration between their respesctive software solutions. Specifically, the companies are offering a bi-directional interface between ArcIMS and WebFocus. The key feature of this integration between ESRI’s geographic information system and IBI’s business intelligence platform is the ability to seamlessly go from maps to reports and vice versa. Maps that are displayed with WebFocus can be used to generate reports by selecting geographic features.

In speaking with IBI executives David Sandel, who directs the business intelligence solutions group, and Bob Hazelton, who is responsible for GIS integration, they said that there are now 30 customers where ESRI and IBI solutions are integrated. I asked them whether the benefits of integration to reveal "location intelligence" were well understood by more than these existing customers. They said that the biggest challenge to acceptance is getting people to use the technology in a way that they’ve never thought of before…something other than row and column output.

As for the type of user who best understands the benefits of this product integration, the public sector is more accepting. Right now, IBI reports that it is a 60/40 split between public and private sector customers. And those who are doing the data analysis are most excited about the results. However, Sandel noted that the private sector are still doing relatively rudimentary data integration such as showing sales data by zip code. Of course, most private companies will not talk about any solutions that offer them a competitive advantage from the integrated approach.

IBI and ESRI have had successful customers for over three years writing WebFocus procedures against ArcIMS and are now testing ArcGIS integration.

NGA Contract: $7 million to ESRI

ESRI will take home $7 million as part of a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for Geospatial Intelligence Support to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA).

The work will be done in Redlands, CA and is expected to be complete by June 8, 2006. The bid for the work went out via the Web on May 6. Just two bids were received.

Vendors Fiddle with e-News

I’m pleased to hear vendors are fiddling with their e-news. Last month Intergraph shared “good news” stating that its several occasional newsletters would be consolidated into one quarterly publication. Good move. I couldn’t keep track of which ones I got and when they came.

Autodesk has gone through many iterations of print and electronic publications. Last I heard the company was launching focused e-news for different divisions, with one aimed at Infrastructure Solutions. Not sure if it ever happened. I did find that Autodesk wants visitors to sign up for “Autodesk email updates keep you on top of the latest news, information and events in your industry.”

Suggestion to all e-news publishers: Show us a sample so we’ll have an idea if the mailing is worthwhile. (If you are reticent to show a sample, there’s a problem!)  If I can’t see a sample, I won’t chance getting on a list from which I can’t get off.

Acquisitions and Tech Errors Slow E-911

Nextel will ask the Federal Communications Commission for a waiver to all it more time to comply with E-911 regulations. The current expectation is that carriers locate 95 of their users cell phones by Dec 31, 2005. Nextel was recently acquired by Sprint and has had technical challenges with its Assisted GPS (A-GPS). The company will ask for an extension until Dec 31, 2006. What does that say for adoption of LBS?

Forthcoming Book on MapServer

“Apress will soon publish the first book solely on MapServer, appropriately titled Beginning MapServer: Open Source GIS Development, by Bill Kropla; later this fall.” That’s from a PR. I’m not familiar with the publisher, but it describes itself this way: “Apress L.P., based in Berkeley, California, is the fastest-growing publisher of technical books in the world today. It is dedicated to meeting the needs of IT professionals, from novice to expert. Apress is dedicated to publishing titles of the highest quality and has compiled a team of authors that is a “Who’s Who” of the high-tech industry.”