Thursday, August 27. 2009

ESRI Thailand: GIS Services Will Change GIS, Infringement Response

The Bangkok Post reports on the Thai GIS User Conference 2009 held last week. The focus seemed to be on the opening up of ArcGIS Online and its services. The company General Manager doesn't feel it will have much impact on Google Earth.

Krairop added that the ArcGIS online will probably not affect Google Earth because the user groups are distinct. Google does not concentrate GIS and users just view the map, while GIS online will evolve the GIS society leading the users and professionals to be GIS creators as they can thoroughly deal with the data. Those professionals can develop such programs as land management, natural resource management, goods delivery, and so forth, for free on the Web.

Krairop adds that "the GIS market continues to expand, with 20 percent growth this year" - it's unclear if he means within ESRI, in country, in region or worldwide. That's quite different from the recent numbers from Daratech earlier this month.

Finally, ESRI Thailand is planning a lawsuit against two companies that broke a software copyright.

- Bangkok Post

Monday, August 24. 2009

ESRI Opens New Learning Center in Redlands

ESRI's old Learning Center (where I believe I learned Arc/INFO in 1992) was getting too small. So ESRI acquired and updated a 1950s building that once served as a grocery and later as a fabric store. The new 10,000-square-foot Learning Center has four classrooms and can hold up to 60 students at a time. There's also room for offices and storage on the second floor.

- Redlands Daily Facts

Tuesday, August 18. 2009

Podcast: The Free Business Model and Geospatial

How do you benefit from giving technology away? This week we look at a trend - all sorts of things (data, technology and Web services) are being offered for free across the technology landscape. It's happening in geospatial too. So, here's today's question: How will companies' free offerings compete with one another?

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Monday, August 17. 2009

Dangermond Profile in Investor's Business Daily

It's a rare article that doesn't focus on ESRI's technology or its use by customers. This Investor's Business Daily article traces Dangermond's life with just a small bit on his vision for his company. Titled "Jack Dangermond’s Digital Mapping Lays It All Out," it's part of the Leaders and Success series it includes some early years anecdotes I'd not heard.

Wednesday, August 12. 2009

The Story of an ArcPAD Extension (developed in 3 months)

This from Marc Cheeves coverage of the ESRI UC and Survey and Engineering Summit in The American Surveyor:

For years, ESRI has pleaded with software manufacturers to create a direct link from ArcPad to the ESRI geodatabase, ArcServer. To that end, he mentioned the new JAVAD GNSS ArcPad extension for handhelds. ArcPad is one of ESRI's field tools, and is used to gather GIS locations.

At the recent ESRI Developers Conference in Palm Springs, Javad Ashjaee met with Dangermond and Jones. On a napkin, they developed the workflow, and in three months, Javad's software engineers--along with an ESRI software engineer sent to Moscow from Egypt--kicked out the new extension. ESRI is very excited about this development because it means, for the first time, office people can benefit, real-time, from what is going on in the field.

Two things strike me about this story. First, if ESRI was really begging for a connection from ArcPAD to the ESRI geodatabase, would that not be a good reason to speed up development of that promised API? Second, some things do start on a napkin and with the right people can get to "market" (at least for a demo) in 3 months.

Tuesday, August 11. 2009

Podcast: Cloud Computing in Geospatial

Cloud computing is on everyone's list of buzz words this summer. What does the phrase mean? And what does it mean in the geospatial arena? We offer some definitions and ways to think about the new computing platform and look at what's happening now and may be ahead for geospatial technology practitioners.

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Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index.