I had several conversations with Intergraph’s product executives to help clarify how the licensing would work for users who wanted to leverage Microsoft or Google API’s with GeoMedia (GeoMedia will use a control to instantiate GE or VE from within a GeoMedia client) since there are restrictions on the usage of data as per the API agreements. Each exec supplied basically the same answer that the Intergraph legal team was working through the issue with regard to the pricing and end-user licensing agreement (EULA). However, though it seems that it may be of minimal cost to users like local governments, who wish to use the API’s to support their community services, it is not clear on how commercial users could utlize the same functionality. Intergraph may end up asking users to deal directly with those supplying the web service.

This is not just an issue for Intergraph users but for others who have varying business models that want to leverage the API’s for commercial or public usage. This has to be clearly defined because many people want to exploit the geospatial data/visualization tools that are offered by Microsoft and Google as an embedded object from within other applications. More data will be added by the big mapping portals and more layers of "legalize" will likely occur and as more data is contributed to the library of "community contributed" geospatial information. It's a scary thought but there is already an assumption, especially by those seeing the Intergraph demo, that the data is free.