TerraGo CEO Sees Growth in Federal Business #esrifedcon

One of the perks of my job is I get to talk to people who are on the front lines of where our business is headed. I sat down with Rick Cobb, CEO of TerraGo Technologies at the Esri Federal GIS conference for a discussion about the growth of his business and the potential impact of reduced federal budgets. Here are some comments from Cobb:

• Federal budgets might limit his business but TerraGo sees tremendous potential for GeoPDF because the penetration of this product into the federal government he puts at only 20%.
• Form factor in mobile computing is significant. The tablet offers TerraGo's users the ability to take entire map books and imagery to the field.
• TerraGo was a turn-around project for Cobb who two years ago took the company from 65 to 21 people and now back to 70 employees with 30 dedicated to software development.
• 70-80% of TerraGo's business is now focused on the federal space.
• The free GeoPDF "toolbar" represented a unique opportunity for TerraGo which now licenses technology from Adobe who now looks to TerraGo to offer geospatial tools to the market who needs them.
• GeoPDF is one of those products that now has tremendous name recognition and provides "the last mile" of data visualization for clients. As such its one of those products that demonstrates the expansion of geospatial technology to "non-GIS" users.
• GeoPDF 6.0 will be out soon and portends to have extensive enhancements.

TerraGo is a major sponsor of the Esri event reflecting a healthy financial position for the company with great outlook.