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| Subject: | GISList: SUM: Outside Opinion - Summary of Smallworld to ArcGIS
compatibl ity q. |
| Date: |
11/02/2001 09:05:30 AM |
| From: |
Anthony Herman |
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Thanks to all who replied... here is the original question and most of the
non comercial responses:
[AH\ Subject: [ESRI-L\ Smallworld to ArcGIS
[AH\ I am looking for personal comments/experience on using Smallworld GIS
for Facilities Management, map production, and regular GIS analysis - in
comparison
[AH\ to other GISware... ie.:ESRI or Intergraphs: AM/FM. What would you
choose and why? Have you chosen Smallworld... what is your experience?
_____
-----Original Message-----
From: Crider, Charles [ <mailto:criderc@emwd.org> mailto:criderc@emwd.org\
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 9:03 AM
To: 'Anthony Herman'
Subject: RE: [ESRI-L\ Smallworld to ArcGIS
Two different animals, there is not communication with spatial and tabular
data sets concerning SmallWorld and ESRI at our site in 3 years of
SmallWorld implementation and the programmers are here continuously. Best
bet, move to one open platform. I would recommend the ESRI platform to
remove finger pointing (compatibility issues), ensure communication (open
data sharing), and seamless operations throughout (complete compatibility).
No headaches for you either... ESRI did not have ArcFM at the time we were
deciding an AM/FM solution from Intergraph platform. I hope you have not
made a total dedicated commitment (can't turn back attitude)to SmallWorld
like we have. ESRI may be more expensive but in the case of time,
versatility, production, data sharing, you get what you pay for and all
issues should be addressed. When I recommend further study to recognize
and address issues concerning the SmallWorld & ESRI product sharing and
operation limitations I was shut out because nobody wants to admit failure
or at lease extremely slow progress. The SmallWorld software is being used
by the AM/FM data entry people. SmallWorld programmers are here much of the
time or e-mailing scripts, and communication outside of SmallWorld i.e..
SCADA, CMMS, ESRI and CAD is not working, after +3 years of implementation.
All I have seen is failed demos...
If there is someone who does know the data sharing solution let me know, so
I can tell the Smallworld's programmers at our site. Have you tried
discussing this with the SmallWorld people? I know they will say they can
virtually do anything. When I discuss data sharing issues with ESRI they say
the SmallWorld software is very good, but have no answers.
Good Luck,
Charles Crider
Eastern Municipal Water District
criderc@emwd.org
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Anthony,
You should take a look at the following page:
<http://www.safe.com/fme_smallworld.htm>
http://www.safe.com/fme_smallworld.htm. Even though the price may be a bit
high it may be a good idea especially if you are going to be a two product
house. Also, RockWare can get you ArcView 8.1 for about $150 less than
anyone else. Just go to
<http://www.rockware.com/catalog/pages/arcview.html>
http://www.rockware.com/catalog/pages/arcview.html.
Hope this helps!
Alex Diamond
GIS Product Manager
Rockware, Inc.
2221 East St. Suite 101
Golden, CO 80401
Phone:303-278-3534 ext. 100
Fax:303-278-4099
alex@rockware.com
www.rockware.com
_____
Dear Anthony,
I think GE Smallworld is an excellent product, for some specific
applications and industries. I presume you are in the oil/gas industry, and
so I would say that GE Smallworld would be a very good choice if your
specific intent is to manage facilities with the GIS. However, I will tell
you, and contrary to what marketing materials or people will tell you, that
the GE Smallworld applications are not as "open" as most people are lead to
believe. You can store data in Oracle, etc. but it is still a BLOB, ie. you
can't just take your Oracle database and hook it up to some other GIS in the
future and expect it to work right without ALOT of effort and expense). One
tool to help mitigate this is FME from Safe Software (they are in BC too),
they provide migration and conversion tools to help. ESRI,Intergraph,
Autodesk all have good roducts, but ESRI and Intergraph are just as capable
as GE Smallworld, and have a broader GIS application. The fact that GE
Smallworld doesn't "do" land management or polygon analysis, etc. very well
if at all makes it rather limited when compared to the types of uses that
other GIS applications can do (from ESRI, Intergraph, etc.), such as site
selection analysis for route planning, business geographics to find
customers within a certain distance from the route, etc. Granted, GE
Smallworld is making efforts to correct these and may already have done so,
but compared to others, it's a specific tool for somewhat specific purposes
and not a general GIS application. There are also some lingering technical
issues in terms of how the software manages extracts, updates to facilities
when tied to landbase, document and image management, field data access,
etc. It is a large
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