MISO are Microsoft, IBM, SAP and Oracle, the big enterprise players in the market today. All have a toe or more in GIS, but all also have a tie to ESRI. What's the state of those relationships and what new players also want and need to hook up with the big E? Our editors explore these questions and toss in a few other letters, G, A and B into the alphabet soup.


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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at ZDnet tackles it revealing contradictory statements from Apple, the source of NYT's David Pogues "small antenna" statement and a blog all about GPS and the iPhone (Steffen Breitbach's iGPS).

Michael Arrington at TechCruch (via Washington Post) chastises the two social networks because while they offer effective and popular apps for the iPhone, neither added in location, something he says is the only way to draw new users.

But while both applications are useful for heavy users, they won't drive new users to the services because they failed to leverage the killer iPhone feature - location awareness.

He acknowledges privacy concerns, but seems convinced these can be managed. It does seem these and other players are simply "late to the party" giving Loopt, Whrrl and others a jump on the mobile platform.

Below is a roundup of the experiences, limitations, insights and hopes for the new iPhone as it relates to GPS, location and location-based services.

The 3G iPhone goes on sale tomorrow. I note that since I received at least one e-mail telling it was already available; sure Mr. Pogue has one, but not any regular folks. One of Pogue's (and other's) issues is that the 3G for fast access is not widespread. Before you stand in line, check out the coverage map. The data is as of 5/31/08. I'm surprised the map's not been updated for the launch. (Not sure how Silicon Alley Insider got newer maps.) The app and/or the data seems to be from ESRI.

Note that you need to check a box in the legend (below the map) when in the voice option (default, above the map) to view the 3G coverage.

The New York Times tech guru is not impressed:

The new iPhone has true G.P.S. now, too, in addition to the fake G.P.S. of its predecessor — an ingenious system that shows your location on a map by analyzing nearby cellphone towers and Wi-Fi hot spots.

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do with the G.P.S. According to Apple, the iPhone’s G.P.S. antenna is much too small to emulate the turn-by-turn navigation of a G.P.S. unit for a vehicle, for example.

Instead, all it can do at this point is track your position as you drive along, representing you as a blue dot sliding along the roads of the map. Even then, the metal of a car or the buildings of Manhattan are often enough to block the iPhone’s view of the sky, leaving it just as confused as you are.

On the whole he says it's a nice upgrade, but much of it comes from the new apps, which can run on the old device.