The floor seems rather empty. ESRI personnel tell me attendance is likely to be flat compared to last year. They cited about 9000 people here for the first day but noted many more showed up today. ESRI won’t have complete numbers until the end of the event, but there is speculation about the same number of attendees may be here, just for fewer days. I saw tweets and heard from individuals in passing that numbers were down 3000. I’m not sure of the source of that rumor.
There were crowds at just a few booths when I walked by: Geo3D and Adapx to name two.
There seemed to be many booths with generic signage, so that I found it hard to know (1) what they offer and (2) what they hoped I’d learn about at this event.
I stopped by AECOM mostly because a friend of mine works there (he’s the author of our podcast music). I knew it was a company formed by the agglomeration of many engineering firms including Boston area’s Metcalf and Eddy. What I didn’t realize was how many other GIS companies are now part of the family: EDAW (not quite integrated), ENSR, Earth Tech, and others.
The biggest booths were from surveying related companies: Trimble and Topcon. Also with a big booth: Touch Table. Oddly it was not very crowded. Perhaps the excitement has worn off that technology?
Google had a small booth with a table top sign: Share your data with Google.
Microsoft had a presence in a few areas of the floor. The largest booth offered a brochure titled Microsoft and ESRI. The first page touted a partnership since 1986 and pictures of Bill Gates and Jack Dangermond next to one another. It went on to highlight how the partnership increases productivity, inspires creativity, organizes information, goes mobile and encourages awareness. This tight partnership didn’t seem evident on the main stage on Monday when MapIt got just a slide and seemed to be mentioned in passing.
I had an interesting chat with Jim Steiner and Xavier Lopez from Oracle. Steiner highlighted the new capabilities of the new version to support 3D and not just 3D data but analyses, including interference detection. When I asked about why it seems 3D has “come of age” (ESRI will have full 3D support in 9.4) Steiner gave credit to Google for raising awareness and highlighting practical uses.
We also chatted a bit about the cloud and Steiner shared some observations from IDC. I learned that one way enterprises are using the cloud is for quick start or prototype applications. It’s much cheaper and easier to set up a tool in a cloud, then if it works, move it into the enterprise. That floored me, but seems to make sense “in these challenging times.” The next step after moving back in house is sometimes moving back to the cloud to insure capacity. He also noted that a good “first use” of the cloud is for simple backups. The other revelation (again from IDC) suggested that the new platform is allowing new players to break in. The most important characteristics for a cloud solution provider? Name recognition? Local presence? No. Price.
