The article is titled "Web-Based Mapping Tools Help Governments Transform GIS into New Services" which seems a bit dated to me.

The main focus is Google apps - implementations by Utah (Mapserv) and Alabama (Virtual Alabama) and Las Vegas (which has an ESRI backend). Then there's a bit about Sheboygan, WI and it's use of Autodesk software. After that rundown you read this:

Google Earth, Autodesk and a host of other platforms offer possibilities limited only by the imagination. But do these applications threaten the demise of traditional GIS? It might seem like these new, user-friendly manifestations of GIS data would spell the end for ESRI, CARIS and other traditional GIS solutions providers. But according to those using new-school applications, the opposite is true.

The first defender is not who you might think; it's a rep from deCarta. Then there are co-existance words from Chikai Ohazama, product manager for Google Earth and the theme of "moving such tech to the masses is the real revolution" from Chuck Herring at DigitalGlobe.

Also, you can read Jack Dangermond's latest predictions about the future.

Randall Newton at AEC News blog notes the 10,000+ number and notes the event will soon catch up with the one time big CAD event: AEC Systems. It's still small compared the ESRI User Conference. Also noteworthy: CADCAMNETtv.com coverage of the event, for those who like their CAD news on "tv."

We've received a few e-mails asking if we are at Autodesk University, going on this week in Las Vegas and where to find coverage. Our staff is enjoying the week after Thanksgiving at home for a change!

There is coverage out there. Cadopolis offers its aggregration of feeds (think PlanetGS for CAD) (many bloggers are at AU). There's also as well as an aggregation of AU specific feeds.

And, as always, we welcome coverage from any geo-folks at the event - just drop us an e-mail with what you saw, heard, learned, thought was interesting, etc.

If you need reassurance that open source geodata and services can work, read LinuxWorld's comprehensive interview with GeoNames "gazeteer plus" founder Marc Wick. He speaks to how the project got rolling, why he's chosen a creative commons licenses, how the number of data sources once about five now tops 100. The interviewer clearly did some homework: there's a question about implications for geonames of Autodesk taking Mentor's projection engine to open source.

Oddly, I didn't see anything from Autodesk but Wired runs a nice feature on the "then and now" of AutoCAD and CAD in general. Some of the passages can also be applied to our world of geospatial technology. I'll offer:

What AutoCAD did, if you look at a snapshot of the past 25 years, was really to democratize computer-aided drafting," says Mark Fritts, a senior manager at Autodesk and, prior to that, a licensed architect in California.

...

Before its commercial availability, computer-aided drafting (or design) was limited to massive corporations or large universities. Such software required not only huge amounts of computing power, but also large swaths of dedicated floor space to house the hulking machines needed to run it.

...

Interestingly, the software's main selling point today is the same today as it was the year of its birth: productivity. Whether used to design the tooling and instrumentation on Boeing airplanes or the aquatic O stage for Cirque du Soleil, AutoCAD continues to help designers and engineers complete complicated projects faster and with far fewer people.

PC World Australia interviews Liam Speden, product manager for MapGuide about Autodesk's recent acquistion of CS-Map from Mentor Software and its decision to turn that code over to the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. Some of the more interesting comments from Speden:

- coordinate systems will soon include time (huh?)
- a common set of code will enhance compatibility and thus improve quality and reliability in mobile services
- the code can enhance things like Geonames (I'm not sure the questioner knows that that is)
- it's good MapGuide Open Source and MapGuide Enterprise will use the same code down the road
- it offers more than Proj-4 (the existing widely used open source projection library)
- donation to be finalized by end of the year
- not one, but two mentions of The Urban Forest Map in San Francisco (there's got to be another user out there to profile!)