The short interview yields a few interesting tidbits:
“I don’t think it was inevitable that geographic information systems would have come into being in the way they have [without ESRI]”
- Interesting conjecture; we’ll never know!
“Sears invested $4 million to build a system, and they saved $43 million a year as a result of automating their trucks for delivery.”
- That implementation seems to be the one ESRI continues to hold up as an example. One reason no other names/number may pop up? Other users may not have given permission to share such information.
“In the early years, GIS was largely a proprietary technology. It invented its own standards for doing things. GIS has moved from that position to using IT standards and standards-based technology.”
- Is that unique to GIS or is that true of other disciplines?
