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| Subject: | Re: GISList: I concede! .E00 is not the best - its only what you get! |
| Date: |
01/13/2002 04:49:15 PM |
| From: |
Glenn Letham |
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It all gets even better too, in the long run! As the ArcView product line
migrates towards the ArcGIS platform (e. AV8x etc...) I'm sure that
eventually the 3x series will end ... Keep in mind that this is not in the
short term and ArcView 3.3 will be out soon. What bothers me is that the 8x
series has very different licensing and requires a maintenance fee/license
that is payable to... of course.... ESRI.
What does this mean? As a business partner it has huge implications.
Basically is removes the need for the business partner and all sales will go
through ESRI.com. Business partners are still encouraged to sign up and pay
annual fees in order to have the "right" to sell ESRI products, however,
these sales (already reduced signifigantly) will eventually end. There's no
more partner in the term "Business Partner"... it's just Business I guess!
Thanks for the opportunity to rant
Glenn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
----- Original Message -----
From: "Neil Havermale" <neilh@redhensystems.com>
To: "'Stephen Smyrl'" <Stephen_Smyrl@telus.net>: "Robert Heitzman"
<rheitzman@hotmail.com>
Cc: <gislist@geocomm.com>: <Manifold-L@lists.directionsmag.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 12:03 AM
Subject: RE: GISList: I concede! .E00 is not the best - its only what you
get!
> Rant on! I know well the frustration of not being able to afford the ESRI
> solution for seemingly simple data transfer. Try Blue Marble....
>
> Back in the days when ESRI alternatives were just about nil due to the
> Sun-ESRI-Oracle lock on GIS workstations, yes, it was more than
frustrating
> to be trying to use a new-comer GIS like MapInfo to do on a $5000 PC what
> others needed $80,000 to do. My/our/your frustration then comes from the
> discovery that all the data you were looking for was "available". You
jump
> straight to how great desktop mapping could be - rising expectations. You
> watch the post for your data (in the old days when a hotrod modem kicked
out
> 2400b).
>
> But reality stops you dead in your tracks: the E00 file that was recorded
to
> 3.5' floppy is in an impossible UNIX disk format - "Gosh, our office
doesn't
> have a PC yet. I have a friend who just got one, maybe he can help". Two
> days turns into two weeks. You and your squad of friendly data translators
> get the file on a DOS disk (yes, we all learned quite a lot) only to find
> that the WinTel E00 translator was not up to the task. The developer
> responding "I didn't have that version of ArcInfo" - more UNIX vs.
> DOS/Windows head-banging. Get that figured out only discover "topology"
> differences between arcnode and spatial object design plus the old problem
> of geographic objects versus tabular data. That was almost a decade ago
and
> despite all the "OpenGIS" noise and posturing since apparently little has
> changed.
>
> ESRI's inability to enable easy data translation is not new. Those who
live
> on a GIS budget and really don't care about others who don't look up from
> their feeding trough and point a jab at SDTS as a "open" public format
and
> what a joke that was. Bluntly, SDTS did and does work as long as the
> exporting utility "does it by the book" which certain GIS leadership
decided
> to interpret their own way. Just ask some of the old hands a USGS about
> ESRI's formatting of SDTS.....
>
> Lastly, we are/were very excited about the potential of SHP up to the
point
> we were missing projection and datum information - whoops! Seems so
simple?
> I too am not a geographer but I do dig the neat things GIS can do in
space.
> Over the years, I have found that if an ESRI license is involved in the
> source data do not expect much to go smoothly. Make certain you know the
> update on the ESRI tools as well as your translator tool. Its also smart
to
> make certain that the pending SHP or E00 data does in fact have a TXT file
> of metadata.
>
> I am no rookie to this issue. After nearly twenty years of desktop
mapping
> I have discovered only those who do not get out much deem ESRI tools to be
> the best. Further, I have discovered buy hard-knock and burnt fingers
that
> if you can cause any company or data supplier to provide a MIF/MID
> translation, then your spatial data is then readily transferable to any
GIS
> platform including all of the emerging ESRI 8+ products.
>
> Its simply AkeInfo or AkeView and that is the way it is. Get over it!
You
> want real fear in your heart - I have a friend who saw Bill and Jack
getting
> off a private elevator in LA just prior to Jack's delivery to the
> workstation GIS-nerds that VisualBasic would soon be a part
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