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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | GISList: RE: [Manifold\ I concede! .E00 Rules! |
| Date: |
01/15/2002 05:24:13 PM |
| From: |
Dimitri Rotow |
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>
> Ok, I concede. ESRI is the center of the GIS universe and .E00 is an
> excellent interchange format.
>
> Once the thread on .E00 got cross posted (not by me) into ESRI
> land that has
> become obvious. Obviously the Manifold-L list has either a mole, or a
> defector from ESRI land! :)
>
> Any way... I've been here before, about 10-15 years (20?) before.
> Then it
> was IBM and DEC reps huddled together behind cipher locked doors with the
> mainframe staff. Calling in the regional sales staff to wine and
> dine the
> boss till he didn't mind signing off on the latest multi-megabuck
> purchase
> order. They held up well! For a while.
>
Bob -
Good rant, with many fair points but the situation is not so bad. Once third
parties master import of .e00 it becomes irrelevant as a lock. Already (as
reported in recent postings), Manifold imports .e00 much better than the
large majority of ESRI's installed base of software ArcView 3.2. Manifold
has a much easier interface for .e00 import, it imports more .e00 files with
a wider range of data and it is more accurate. Today, if the majority of
ESRI's customers want to do a good job importing .e00 their smartest move is
to buy a copy of Manifold, use it to import the .e00 and then write it as a
.shp file.
So, how well does .e00 really work as a lock to keep people stuck on ESRI?
It's more like just another living fossil stupidity from the Jurassic age of
ArcInfo... something like the return of punched paper cards or vacuum tube
computers.
Although Manifold is better than AV 3.2 with .e00, it is getting yet better.
We have a huge number of users worldwide who, I am sure, will find even the
most exotic variations on .e00 and will send us examples of those few
variations not yet supported by the importer. We are within a hair's breadth
(few weeks, couple of months) of assuring that all .e00 files written by any
version of ArcInfo no matter what the content will be perfectly imported by
Manifold. I don't think even whatever passes for a late model ArcInfo
installation can do that.
If you can import .e00 data at will, who cares what the actual format is?
If ESRI wants to perpetuate a difficult format within their ranks, well,
that's up to them. All it will succeed in doing is to distance them further
from the computing mainstream. Microsoft, by the way, knows that no matter
what their market power it is wise to make it very easy for third parties to
use their format. It's one reason that "mainstream" has become a synonym for
"Wintel".
Cheers,
Dimitri
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