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

[Tim Bowden]

On Tue, 2007-10-09 at 09:39 +1000, Roppola, Antti - BRS wrote:
> Tim wrote:
> 
> > 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"
> 
> Some personal thoughts...
> 
> Most of the major vendors have enthusiastically jumped on the enterprise
> bandwagon. In the last couple of conferences I've been to, I've seen the
> broad message has shifted from "spatial is special" to "spatial is not
> special". I think the idea is that all of them would like to occupy the
> same sort of niche that Oracle occupies in the corporate data centre
> (GIS is part of the enterprise as long as it's our GIS). But those
> aspirations are going to be a lot harder to realise in the current
> market than in the late 80's (where software wasn't a commodity).
> 
> Their ability to keep a walled garden will depend to a great extent on
> how compelling a proposition they can make. I'd suspect that the
> incumbents (Google, MS, Oracle and the Burgeoning array of FOSS) will
> not be too keen to let "them" build something like that uncontested.
> 

Sure the vendors like to talk about enterprise solutions, but few of the
traditional GIS vendors are able to do it from what I can see.  In an
enterprise setting, every time your data hits a "speed bump" (or a
garden wall) that limits the utility of the data as it moves from one
tool set to another, you reduce the value of the enterprise solution.
No one vendor can offer all that is required for an enterprise solution,
no matter what Microsoft or Oracle & co would have you believe.  Your
data needs to be available in open defined standard interfaces, so you
can use it with whatever tool set suits the needs at the time.  Sure, in
some ways that's a bit of a pipe dream, as reality often falls quite
short in many ways, but think about the success of SQL as a standard.
Typically nobody stores enterprise data in an environment that doesn't
support SQL for that very reason.  If you can only really make use of
your data with one particular vendors tools, you're severely limiting
the ways you can use it, as you will always have some uses of your data
that your vendor is not interested in investing in.  I don't believe
that traditional GIS vendors are able to move away from the walled
garden mindset, as their business models seem to be too firmly bound to
this idea.

> Cheers,
> 
> Antti
> 

Regards,
Tim