Oregon ESRI ELA and the Legislation Behind It

The interesting part of today’s press release regarding the State of Oregon purchasing an Enterprise License Agreement from ESRI for an “all you can eat” plate for software for the state was the reference to the legislation passed to make ESRI software the standard.

Oregon also recently passed legislation making ESRI technology the standard for GIS in all state agencies. The administrative rule is Oregon’s first IT standard.

Five other states have ELA’s (Alabama, Delaware, Maine, Montana, and North Carolina) though I’m not sure if they also have laws on the books. I dug back and found an FAQ from 2007, when the legislation was proposed. The text of the legislation, passed earlier this year (I could not find the date) is here.

The benefits of standardizing on ESRI technology are detailed in the FAQ:

(a) Current installed base of GIS software and trained expertise within state agencies.
(b) General technical benefits associated with the use of standardized software, including but not limited to:
Simplified software and application infrastructure configurations.
Ease of software installations and upgrades.
Simplified application connectivity, security and data distribution architectures.
The capacity for simultaneous multi-user editing, dataset versioning, and history retention.
The ability to utilize existing geospatial business intelligence to ensure data integrity and consistency via the establishment of topology rules, data attribute domain rules, and data validation rules.
(c) Enterprise-oriented data and application accessibility offered by the use of common GIS software deployed across state agencies.
(d) Enhanced functionality and interoperability of related software components within a suite of software applications including the reduction of costly data translations between diverse software products and the ability to leverage data modeling and processing efforts for reuse between agencies.
(e) Ease of sharing geospatial data among agencies and with the public based on a common GIS software infrastructure

Also noteworthy: no one would be forced to buy or use ESRI software per an exemption.

...the proposed OAR [Oregon Administrative Rule] includes an exception process that recognizes the existence and potential persistence of non-ESRI legacy software use and that a business rationale may exist for future state agency investments in non-ESRI GIS software.

New, Old Geospatial Players Team to Tackle Telco

Pitney Bowes Business Insights (aka MapInfo) and Netezza, a spatial data appliance provider, announced a teaming agreement today at CTIA to tackle the telecommunications marketplace, mostly. It appears that the relationship will broaden to include other industries as well. It’s yet more proof that the new and old geospatial technology providers are joining forces to prepare for what I believe is a new wave of enterprise adoption in the location intelligence space. And, as a result, more emphasis is being placed on managing geospatial datatypes in as part of the IT infrastructure.

LI 2009 Call for Presentations

Today, we have announced the call for presentations for the 2009 Location Intelligence Conference that will be held October 5-7 at the Westin Hotel in Westminster, CO. The focus this year is somewhat different than in past years. Although we still seek presentations focused on business applications of location technology and that remains a focus of the conference, we are putting an emphasis on B2B networking and interaction. As such, we are offering some very unique workshops including:

• High Performance & High Impact Partnerships: What You Need to Look for in a Good Business Partner Relationship
• Talking to the CXO about Location Intelligence and Location Technology
• The News Media and the New Media: Working with the Technology Media - Do’s and Don’ts & Social Nets for Business

It’s an approach that many of our attendees have told us they want. In addition, you’ll find that we have reduced fees to attend and exhibit across the board. We recognize that businesses are looking to reduce the cost of travel and conference attendance but also recognize the value in meeting face-to-face. We think the move to Colorado allows us to provide a great setting while watching expenses.

PhotoSynth for Disaster

The Tech Review Blog has brief discussion of using PhotoSynth to aggregate images of disaster areas to create 3D models for responders. The app is called RubbleViewer and hails from Robin Murphy and a team from Texas A&M University.

Old Poll, New Poll

A little over a month ago we asked: What’s your biggest “people” challenge in doing your geo-related job? We received 80 responses, with the leading challenge being hiring the right or enough people.

42% Hiring the right/enough people
25% Something else
19% Lack of professionalism
15% “Getting along”

Next up: If available free, how would you use background data provided to your desktop GIS from the cloud (as ESRI is doing in a future release with Microsoft’s Virtual Earth)?