[OSGeo-Discuss] ESRI Spain conference incident

[Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas]

2008/10/17 Lester Caine <lester at lsces.co.uk>:
> Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas wrote:
>>
>> Hi All, I resend this mail to OSGeo discuss because I think is a
>> serious incident that cannot be obviated and shows how things are
>> getting at least in Spanish market.
>>
>> I write this mail on behalf of Álvaro Anguix one of the leaders of
>> gvSIG Project (it seems he is more confident with my English than me
>> :P). I've posted his letter in Spanish on my personal weblog[1], and I
>> write down here more or less his thoughts.
>>
>> As you may know, he works for IVER, the most prominent company that
>> supports gvSIG (aside note, I work for Prodevelop, another gvSIG
>> supporting company). Ok, some coworkers of him went to Madrid few days
>> ago to attend the Annual ESRI Users Conference. Because IVER has
>> customers that use ESRI technology they, as every year, wanted to know
>> the latest "arc-news". Obviously they registered previously and they
>> were confirmed by the organization.
>>
>> Well, when they tried to register at the beginning of the conference,
>> the Marketing Director invited them to abandon the conference. Even
>> more, the Managing Director of ESRI Spain insisted one of the IVER
>> people that "to talk with customers, better she should go to a café or
>> on the street". Quite annoying and bizarre!
>>
>> As Alvaro says, why they have this behavior with his colleagues? Maybe
>> they fear FOSS companies?
>
> Does sound rather annoying, and I assume that in addition to the time taken
> to get to the conference, money was also involved? I've had similar
> treatment in anther software area, but at least they had the courtesy to
> send an email after accepting the booking. Had I taken the time and expense
> to travel into London I think I would have been requesting that they gave me
> a refund of expenses at least!

The ESRI user conference is gratis, but you need to register yourself
and receive confirmation of the organisation. Some of that people went
to Madrid from Valencia, so they lost (or not, it depends how you see
that) their work day and that's money of course.

>
> In many areas where open source cooperation is now better established
> everybody has learnt what it is all about - COOPERATION - and we all help
> one another! I think that the likes of OSM and other open source
> developments in mapping are scaring a lot of companies that have been on a
> 'nice little earner' and they are going to have to adapt!
>
> The open source data sets are by no means complete, but in some areas - such
> as China - they may be the only available source so companies trying to sell
> data certainly need to adapt fast to make their money in the overlaps :)
>
> --
> Lester Caine - G8HFL
> -----------------------------
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Cheers
-- 
Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
Ingeniero en Geodesia y Cartografía
http://www.geomaticblog.net
http://oblongomirihi.wordpress.com
http://www.prodevelop.es