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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Subject: | RE: GISList: DLL for coordinate conversions |
| Date: |
10/17/2001 04:57:30 PM |
| From: |
Dimitri Rotow |
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> I am interested in knowing if anyone out there has any experience, needs
> help, or wants to implement a DLL for coordinate conversions
> inside of there
> own applications. I am thinking about working with a developer on such a
> product and I am interested in knowing what types of things people are
> looking for. For example: is there a need for such a product? Also, what
> types of projections and coordinate systems might be best to
> include...any
> ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Alex,
I'd be surprised if there is a going business in such a thing. The GIS
industry right now is going through a period of consolidation where
functions that used to be sellable as independent bits and pieces are being
consolidated into unified packages that sell for very low cost.
In an earlier day one might have purchased a vector GIS, a remote sensing or
raster package, a coordinate conversion or import/export tool, a map server
and maybe an optional package to allow programming of new applications. All
that would cost thousands of dollars per seat, enough so that each vendor of
each small piece could charge a few hundred or even a few thousand.
No more. Today, the price of a fully-loaded, very comprehensive GIS system
that works with vectors, raster images, surfaces, 3D terrains, databases,
etc, which includes an Internet map server, full development facilities and
which can import from essentially all known formats and convert between
essentially all coordinate systems/datums is now down to under $250,
quantity one or about $125 a copy for larger quantity purchases. An
established vendor may be able to coast for a while selling the GIS
equivalent of $500 hammers to agencies who aren't too savvy about
procurement, but for a new product (like yours) you have to consider where
prices will be when your product hits the market.
I think the new trend to unified packages has an especially big impact on
coordinate system conversion utilities. Anybody needing to do projection
conversions quite likely will also want lots of other GIS functionality to
achieve their interchange or conversion objectives. For example, they will
want to edit drawings (to get a subset of a layer or to clip drawings down
to a particular rectangle), they will want to convert database types in
tables, rename fields, convert the form of data through point in polygon and
polygon in polygon operations and so on. Perhaps they will want to vectorize
raster data, resample or otherwise process raster data, or rasterize vector
data. If they can get all that for between $125 and $250 they won't pay
more (unless they don't know any better) just for coordinate conversion.
For resale, anyone creating a new GIS product has to contend with that $125
to $250 ceiling for full-featured functionality. If they are buying part of
that functionality from you, they have to buy it at such a low price that
they can still be competitive on resale. A rule of thumb says that a factor
of four markup should be applied to raw cost in OEM/resale situations. Even
if you charged only $10 per unit the resultant retail cost implied for your
share of the application would be $40. That's a huge part of the cost of a
package that must face a $125 to $250 competitor.
My advice? If you have the technical skills to master coordinate conversion
you probably have the technical skills to create killer GIS applications by
leveraging an existing platform. Get one of those cool new "$125 to $250"
packages and write up some scripts or some VB/VC++ code to customize it for
a target vertical market. Buy your framework for $125 a copy, add your
skills and sell the result for a few thousand dollars a copy. :-)
Cheers,
Dimitri
dar@manifold.net
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