Monday, June 22. 2009

Real Estate, Real Estate, Real Estate….Wait…Parcels, Parcels, Parcels

First American Spatial Solutions (FASS) will be announcing this week that they have taken a huge step in creating the largest private, national parcel database. The product released today is called National Cadastre. The new product captures “parcel information and points” from more than 120 million parcels in approximately 2000 of the over 3600 counties in the U.S. (see image at right; click for larger graphic). In conjunction with the company’s PxPoint geocoder, clients can now achieve highly accurate parcel-level geocoding.

Now the big question. Why has a private company decided that they wanted to create a nationwide cadastre? Isn’t this something that the national government should have spearheaded? Or, have the problems associated with the fiefdoms of local government necessitated that only a private company could have got it done? When they first started, there were many questions about why FASS was doing this, according to Scott Little, executive vice president. Some agencies acted defensively and questioned FASS’ objectives. One of the things that FASS has been doing over the last two years is working on multiple committees in the government considering a national cadastre. Recent discussions have changed over time where it is now a very positive relationship once it was understood that FASS’ parent company could maintain and update the information over time.

How do you maintain a national cadastre?
FASS has individuals working to collect data in every jurisdiction in the country. That’s been the case for many years as sister company, First American Title, has become the premier title company in the country. First American has been collecting and maintaining parcel data in local communities well before the company even thought about turning these data into a spatial solution. For many years, applications in title searches, flood data, tax information, and other data associated with property ownership have been captured. According the Little, the infrastructure has been in place through its corporate affiliates. FASS is now able to bring spatial and database capabilities as a value added service to both its internal affiliates and outside clients.

How do you price parcels?
Pricing is another normal process within First American. In the mortgage and insurance markets, those industries have daily requests for information related to valuation and risk.  Pricing related to value added information is nothing new to a company that regularly deals with thousands of daily transactions.

Applications
Apart from the typical applications in insurance, banking, real estate, and tax, the availability of a national parcel database could have the same impact as we saw when global satellite imagery was released through Google Earth. We just don’t know what some entrepreneurs might do when certain spatial data become available. But, we are about to find out.

Monday, June 15. 2009

InformationWeek Reports BI Business Grows 22% in '08; Will LI follow?

Citing studies by Gartner, the market research firm, InformationWeek reports that business intelligence (BI) software solutions grew 22% in 2008 to $8.8 billion with only six vendors comprising 75% of the market: SAP/Business Objects, Oracle, IBM/Cognos, SAS, Microsoft, and Microstrategy. SAP/Business Objects own 24% of the market outright with $2.1 billion in revenue. Gartner suggested some bifurcation of the market with IT departments either purchasing "stack-centric" solutions (e.g. IBM, Oracle, etc.) or targeted solutions for specific departments thus leaving mid-tier BI players with decreasing revenue.

It got me thinking about two issues:

1. Are location intelligent (LI) solutions following the same trend: Will the larger, "stack centric" LI providers like Microsoft, Oracle and SAP be the leaders in the LI space? Are they already?

2. Will LI be absorbed into BI as just another weapon for the BI solution vendors?

Wednesday, June 3. 2009

Google Local Business Center Updated

Google Local Business Center is a free tool for small businesses. It now sports a dashboard and integration with Google Maps so that small biz owners can see what terms drive traffic to their sights and from where. Among the goodies:

- "Zip code information shows where customers are coming from when they request directions to a business listing."
- information on when results come from a Google search vs. a Google Maps search

This looks like a great tool to help educate prospective location intelligence users!

- Google Blog post
via Internet News

Tuesday, May 19. 2009

Directions & USGIF: Collaborating on Geospatial

We announced today a relationship with the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), the not for profit organization that focuses on the intelligence community (IC). It was relationship that was forged between myself and Keith Masback, the USGIF president, in order to promote a better understanding of what the IC can bring to business and vice versa. Is there any difference between spying on the bad guys and spying on your competitor? Maybe, but the foundation of intelligence gathering using geospatial technology is similar. We also realized that education to a wider community is essential and we hope to develop an educational program through our webinars and conferences that make a difference, especially to younger professionals. And it is certainly our intent to support the technology firms and member corporations that deliver location intelligent solutions. The market is growing but even in these difficult, economic times, we can all benefit from the wider exposure. You will be hearing more about our partnership in the coming weeks and months.

Wednesday, April 29. 2009

Zillow's iPhone App...and "Make me Move: The offer I can't refuse"

Today, Zillow.com launched their iPhone app and the one thing I can say is that it will probably cause a few Realtors to gasp for air.

Continue reading "Zillow's iPhone App...and "Make me Move: The offer I can't refuse""

Monday, April 27. 2009

Intergraph, KEMA Examine Smart Grid Opportunities from Stimulus

Intergraph and KEMA are both investigating Smart Grid opportunities that are expected to result from economic stimulus funds. Intergraph, a global provider of engineering and geospatial software, and KEMA, a business and technical consultancy for the energy industry, both view the optimization of the operations control center as key to Smart Grid success. In a report released by KEMA, the company believes that of the stimulus money going towards infrastructure that at least 10% will be dedicated to advanced IT programs of which operation control centers will be a major portion. From the report (download; registration required):

KEMA's projection anticipates that a potential disbursement of $16 billion in Smart Grid incentives would act as a catalyst in driving associated Smart Grid projects that are worth $64 billion. The impact of these projects would result in the direct creation of approximately 280,000 new positions across various categories, of which more than 150,000 will be created by the end of 2009. Furthermore, KEMA estimates that nearly 140,000 new direct jobs would persist beyond the Smart Grid deployment as permanent, on-going high-value positions.

Tony DiMarco of Intergraph believes that his company is well positioned to support the growing demand for infrastructure improvements, specifically surrounding Smart Grid, outage management, mobile resource management and field force automation. Intergraph is also hosting a webinar with Stellar Grants to educate utilities on how to obtain Smart Grid stimulus money. In the area of critical infrastructure, Intergraph can also assess the vulnerability of utility networks. DiMarco emphasized that Intergraph is very focused on improving location-based situational awareness for utilities.