[Aust-NZ] GIS is dead [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Ben.Searle at ga.gov.au]

Tim,

I agree 100% with your views.  While I might not suggest GIS is dead, I would
agree that spatial activities for the average person is where the action is
at now.  GIS specialists, systems and high end requirements would cover only
a few percent of the total numbers of new and potential users of spatial
technologies.  Google and in car sat-nav's plus mobile phones etc are now
providing much of the population with location based services.

As I am sure you have all heard before, some 80% (the figure varies depending
who is giving it, but it is always at the high end of the spectrum) of
government data has a spatial component.  Government holds much of
Australia's spatial information and to better support the 'new' order of
location service providers and users (generally the public and business)
OSDM's objective is to try an make as much of this data as possible
available.

However, this is only half the story.  Getting agencies to make their data
public must be supported through discovery and access tools.  We are a long
way from having this type of infrastructure established but many people are
at least thinking in the right direction.

So, is GIS dead - NO, but location based services and supporting the 'WHERE'
factor is the big growth area of the spatial community.

These are some personal thoughts.....

Regards 
 
Ben Searle
General Manager,
Australian Government
Office of Spatial Data Management

Phone: 02 6249 9298
Mobile: 0439-995-785
Fax: 02 6249 9942
Email: ben.searle at osdm.gov.au
Postal address: GPO Box 378, Canberra ACT 2601
 


-----Original Message-----
From: aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Tim Bowden
Sent: Monday, 8 October 2007 11:14
To: Aust-NZ OSGeo
Subject: Re: [Aust-NZ] GIS is dead



On Mon, 2007-10-08 at 09:09 +1000, Bruce.Bannerman at dpi.vic.gov.au wrote:
> 
> Tim,
> 
> IMO:
> 
> 
> In a world of climate change and water shortage issues just begging 
> for some good spatial/image/temporal analysis, I find it difficult to 
> understand that 'GIS is Dead'.
> 

Ok, so the GIS is dead claim is a little tongue in cheek, but only slightly.
If we look at traditional GIS, we see a bunch of tools that are designed for
use by highly trained experts.  We see vendors creating GIS ecosystems that
are closed environments; "walled in gardens" for want of a better expression,
that try and limit interoperability with other vendors tools.  We see a big
disconnect between GIS systems and general IT systems.

Now compare that to what's happening in the wider spatial world.  Google maps
and similar offerings (for all the technical shortcomings of the various
systems) have helped create a mindset change about how spatial data is being
used.  The big advances in integrating spatial data into everyday IT systems
mostly isn't coming from companies like ESRI.  If you want to have a look at
what's happening, you're better of turning to companies like Nokia, who are
taking spatial data and integrating it into everyday systems.

There are people doing "GIS" now who haven't even heard the term.  Think
accountants doing spatial analysis on asset management systems, insurance
brokers doing spatial risk analysis, transport managers using mapping
capabilities build into their scheduling software.  They don't know what GIS
is, and they don't need to know.  They just need the tools that allow them to
make use of the spatial data they have, and that's happening.  Look at the
spatial capabilities of python, java, perl or whatever your favourite
development environment is.  All the standard "GIS" capabilities are
available there.  It's our responsibility as "GIS" professionals to try and
make these tools as "idiot proof" as possible, and help guide people in the
best use of them, but for good or ill, there are probably more people using
them who don't know GIS than who do.  There will increasingly be more spatial
activity outside the traditional GIS space than inside it.

OK, so mostly it's not high end GIS analysis by any means, but that type of
integration between spatial data and general IT systems is where most of the
action is, rather than traditional GIS. In other words, we're seeing spatial
become just another component of enterprise solutions. Traditional
proprietary GIS vendors from what I've seen by and large haven't moved with
the times (ok, I'm thinking of one vendor in particular here...).  They're
still pushing the "walled in garden" closed ecosystem, which doesn't make for
a good enterprise spatial data management approach.  Enterprise solutions
need to be able to manipulate data using any number of tools, and have the
data available in open accessible formats.  Spatial data then becomes just
another attribute in bigger enterprise wide data sets, rather than being in a
separate specialised system that only GIS experts can access.

That's why traditional GIS is "dead".  

Sure, there will always be a need for specialist GIS services, but heavy
analysis tools are increasingly going to be a smaller and smaller part of the
spatially enabled enterprise solution set.


Anyone want to chip in on this?  If you think I'm wrong, I'd like to know!

Regards,
Tim

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