Tuesday, December 9. 2008

MassGIS, OpenGeo Featured in OS in State Gov Roundup

in this article about open source in state government in IT BusinessEdge. Chris Holmes isn't quoted, but his comment about increased demand for open source geo is noted.

Tele Atlas Cuts 6% of Staff

Details are sketchy about where and when the 125 individuals will be let go (or have been), but the news was out in Lebanon, NH yesterday, where 500 people are employed at what was GDT headquarters.

- WCAX

Vodafone to Acquire LBS Developer Wayfinder

Update: GPS Business News offers analysis.

--- original post 12/9/08 ----
Here's the full 10 page story (pdf).

Here's the short story: Wayfinder, a Swedish company, makes mobile applications that use GPS functionality. Vodafone will pay €24 million to get essentially an in-house LBS application development team. Wayfinder offers a mapping app called Navigator, a fitness app called Active, and a database of POI's, Wikipedia Earth. They all work across Symbian and Windows Mobile.

On the Surge in OGC SDI

Last week The Carbon Project put out a press release titled Carbon Project Announces New Gaia Support Package in Response to OGC SDI Surge. I wondered about such a surge (a term which alas relates in my mind to events in Iraq not geospatial technology). I asked Jeff Harrison, president and CEO, about the nature of the surge and the reasons for it. I received this reply.

The worldwide surge of activity in developing SDI based on OGC standards is
especially pronounced in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

The surge is being caused by three factors -

- The maturity of OGC SDI standards, many of these have become ISO standards
and are now widely accepted

- Implementation of the technologies in standards-based commercial software
has reached a critical mass in the last 18 months - making it possible to do
"real work" instead of testing and piloting

- The public sectors embracing OGC SDI 1.0 interoperability and placing
these requirements into procurements

A Social Network for Surveyors

Update: Justin shared further information in an interview 12/10/08.

---------- original post 12/9/08 --------

Justin Farrow who created a social network for surveyors, Land Surveyors United, shared some details about it. It's not new - it originally launched in March of last year. It reached 100 members as of November. [Update from Justin: "We now have a little over 160 now [12/10]"]

Continue reading "A Social Network for Surveyors"

Kudos to Entrepreneurs Europa, Spatial Networks

The European Business Awards have nominated Warren Vick of Europa Technologies for International Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2009. And the Tampa Bay Business Journal has nominated Spatial Networks and founder Anthony Quartararo for Business of the Year for 2008 in the International category. Europa is best known for supplying world map data to Google, ViaMichelin, and Maps24. Spatial Networks is best known for its product, Geodexy, a mobile field data collection solution.