Redifining the roll of consumer web portals and GIS

At the ESRI UC opening plenary, Dangermond focused some of his remarks on positioning Google and Microsoft with respect to information produced by GIS professionals. He believes that the world of the consumer and geospatial professional will eventually merge. Dangermond explained that "the vision of Google and Microsoft is to geo-reference all content on the web; making it one more dimension of ‘search.’ They are demonstrating the reach which the web provides. GIS professionals are also using the web..and creating a new dimension. Soon we will be able to fuse these dimensions together. Integrating geo-reference information of all types and fusing them into our own (GIS) systems. It will extend geographic information to everyone."