Close

Close
Special Announcement
Newsletter Sign Up
Calendar
Back March '10 Forward
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31        
Syndicate This Blog
Top Referers
manomano.livejournal.com (112)
www.lizardtech.com (79)
www.thegisforum.com (70)
planetgs.com (68)
www.geo2web.com (33)
Our Points
Tuesday, April 10. 2007

Why Microsoft's Mapping Efforts are "Low Profile"

I'm responding to The Maproom's query on the matter. The post suggests a few good answers: name changes, limited platform support, more complex interface, limited goodwill. I'll add one, which those who've been reading this blog for a while will expect: challenged marketing. I'll leave it at that.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Microsoft at 14:42 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0) | Bookmark and Share

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

A few days ago Paul Graham posted the controversial (and according to some, link-baiting) "Microsoft is Dead."

http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

And by dead he means increasingly irrelevant. (Kottke).

Maybe that has something to do with the matter, too.
#1 Atanas Entchev (Link) on 2007-04-10 15:12 (Reply)
Not to pile on, but the amount of research it took me to partially figure out what the web portal--Virtual Earth or whatever name--does vs. what is offered via MapPoint is still memorable for the myriad web pages I had to visit just to piece together a semi-coherent answer I could then communicate to a potential client.

Personally I think they have great components by the whole doesn't quite equal the sum of its parts. As others have noted, functionitis (a common enough plague in the GIS world) too often wins out over usability.

All that said, however, if MS adds spatial to SQL Server's intrinsic functionality and they can get their web mapping platform talking to Office (Excel, Access), they could take a huge portion of the potential market share that's still lagging in geospatial uptake.


BT
#2 Brian Timoney (Link) on 2007-04-10 15:59 (Reply)
Interestingly, our company has a product that does just what you are talking about: Toucan Navigate. We will have a free version out next month. We can map from SQL, Excell, Groove, etc. Our client is lightweight 1.8MB and can work online and offline. Check it out. We are a small organiZation and we still need to update the web site. Let me know if you want to get the free version when it comes out.
#2.1 Neil Alderman (Link) on 2007-04-10 20:01 (Reply)
It is a good question. We have been hoping that SQL Server would add support that was compliant with the Open Geospatial Consortium. If you don't care about future compatability issues there is a good article at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345264.aspx
#2.2 Glenn Graham (Link) on 2007-04-25 12:58 (Reply)

Add Comment

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA
    
  
 
Advertisers
Polls
What do you think of this blog's "tidbits" articles that provide roundups of stories on a theme?
Love them, read them all.
Always read the ones in my area(s) of interest.
I skip them.
Didn't realize you did that!

Archives
Comments
Archie Belaney about Kundra: Geospatial One-Stop One of Four Projects of Interest to OMB
March 19
Exactly. striking the balance is the [...]


reidi about "Opensource GIS saves companies thousands"
March 19
The author implies that MapServer and [...]


Adena Schutzberg about Slightly Off Topic: Link Bait Hitting Geo: Why?
March 19
I heard about that on On the Media. [...]


atanas entchev about Slightly Off Topic: Link Bait Hitting Geo: Why?
March 19
TIME magazine ran a story that might [...]


marshall, who despises writing metadata but does it anyway about Kundra: Geospatial One-Stop One of Four Projects of Interest to OMB
March 19
Making fed agencies write metadata is no [...]


Archie Belaney about "Opensource GIS saves companies thousands"
March 18
Open Source by itself doesn't save [...]


Archie Belaney about Kundra: Geospatial One-Stop One of Four Projects of Interest to OMB
March 18
I'll bet once you filter out the [...]


Amazon Recommendations