The podcast starts with a discussion that an economic downturn brings with it an end to complacency, but there's an awful lot of complacency within this podcast, as if price/performance of GIS software doesn't matter in an economic crisis.

The podcast gets it right that GIS is here to stay, an integral part of government activity from small to large. But the podcast gets it wrong by talking about government only, without realizing that non-governmental use of GIS is both much more broadly distributed and also is far larger in terms of actual numbers of users. GIS is there to stay as well.

What is becoming a decisive factor in both government and mainstream markets is how much GIS users have to pay for what they get. Depressions have a way of focussing one's mind on that, so it is very disappointing that Directions does not discuss how in an economic downturn the price/performance of their products can determine which companies go out of business and which will thrive.

When times are flush, people drive by competitive gas stations to buy gas from the station they've become accustomed to patronize. When times get rough, folks start paying attention if some other station sells gas for much less. They change suppliers and may discover that their new station not only sells gas for less, it sells better gas to boot. It's the same way with GIS. The downturn is bringing an end to procurement inertia and is accelerating the shift away from overpriced, living fossil GIS technologies to modern, cost-effective technologies.

People are tired of getting ripped off by absurdly overpriced GIS products that deliver outdated technology. Even government buyers, who traditionally are less caring about cost the bigger the government entity, are being forced by the economic downturn to pay attention to price/performance, reliability and quality. As a result every company that sells better GIS product at a much lower price than legacy stuff is winning share and experiencing record sales. I'm surprised Directions could spend an entire podcast without mentioning that effect or exploring whether the current downturn will be an extinction event for some legacy vendors.

I was also surprised at the seemingly total lack of awareness of technological progress in GIS in recent years. Adena commented that there have been virtually no advancements that provide a compelling reason to buy and that what progress has been made seems to come from open source.

That strikes me as a tremendous slam against the sponsor of the podcast, ESRI, which no doubt could provide numerous reasons why the latest generation of ESRI products provide productivity gains that justify their price. Really, do you think so little of ArcGIS Server that you don't think it is worth buying for whatever gains it promises?

For that matter, genuine technology advancements like supercomputer speed made possible by NVIDIA for under $200, ubiquitous utilization of inexpensive RAM via 64-bit Windows, multicore and multiprocessor GIS on the desktop, direct connect by full-featured GIS for near zero cost to leverage both commercial and free spatial DBMS, automatic integration with image servers, desktop spatial SQL for rasters and vectors that anyone can afford, effectively free Internet Map Servers based on mainstream commercial standards and numerous other technological advancements have all been introduced in the last couple of years by commercial GIS packages, not open source. Anyone can acquire such benefits for as little as $245 per license, or even less, $100 per server, for web applications.

Those advances mean profoundly greater productivity for GIS users ranging from the most modest hobbyist to the largest and most sophisticated organization, and that unprecedented rise in productivity has been delivered at startlingly low prices, about one twentieth to one fortieth of legacy GIS prices. The combination of tremendous technological advances at strikingly low prices has made GIS an irreplaceable tool, especially when economic times are hard because of the immediate ROI conferred by better planning and operations through GIS. "Measure twice, cut once" is especially important during economic downturns.

You bet people in an economic crisis are going to pay attention to such matters, and part of what an economic crisis brings is a focus on common sense and a drive to get the most for your money. When it comes to a choice between firing people or continuing the GIS mission by paying only $245 to get more than what $10,000 per seat used to buy, you can count on folks spending their money more wisely on GIS before they start firing their employees.

Directions should adopt that focus as well, because as times get rough readers want hard-core, specific information on how they can get more for their money doing the hard-core, specific GIS tasks they must accomplish during their eight hour work day. There are plenty of sites gossiping about cell phones and the latest Blackberry for those interested in such matters, but darn little reportage available to GIS people for whom getting better price/performance in their daily GIS activities has become a matter of economic survival.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment. I look forward to future podcasts from Directions Media as the GIS industry evolves to meet the challenges of the day.