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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | RE: GISList: ArcView vs MapInfo vs Manifold |
| Date: |
08/22/2002 09:57:38 AM |
| From: |
McCann, Michael J. (Mike) |
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Let's not go overboard here in a love fest towards Manifold. For someone
who has in past posts talked about companies that waste money on hiring
people to market GIS products, Dimitiri certainly puts in his fair share of
time with Manifold.
You don't necessarily have to buy each product to do a comparison (not to
mention read each line of code...). Reading separate independent reviews of
different software products allows an interested shopper to compare notes
between different features in different software products. For example:
Various Reviews
http://software.geocomm.com/reviews/
http://www.geoplace.com/gr/reviews/reviews.asp
Maptitude Reviews
http://www.maptitude.co.uk/GICaliperProfile.pdf
http://www.geoplace.com/gw/2001/0501/0501qt.asp
http://www.geoplace.com/ge/1999/0799/799gis.asp
Mapinfo Reviews
http://www.geoplace.com/gw/2001/0110/0110qt_1.asp
Arcview 8.1ArcInfo Reviews
http://www.spatialnews.com/features/arcview81/
http://spatialnews.geocomm.com/features/arcinfo8notes.html
MapPoint Reviews
http://www.spatialnews.com/features/mappoint2002/
and on and on and on.....
-----Original Message-----
From: David Nealey [mailto:dnealey@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 9:58 AM
To: dar@manifold.net: gislist@geocomm.com
Subject: Re: GISList: ArcView vs MapInfo vs Manifold
All,
I have to say that this is the best offer that I have ever seen made by any
manufacturer. I applaud Dimitri in his effort to help people make the best
decision when buying GIS software. No one or organization can afford to buy
every package just to learn if they work the way they work or not. And no
one can afford the time to test all the different packages--two is about the
most that a person can effectively learn and still do his/her job.
And Dimitri when you are open and honest like this, I hope that people will
buy your product. The price is definitely right and your commitment to
product research and development seems like it will provide a good return on
buyers' investments.
David
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dimitri Rotow" <dar@manifold.net>
To: <gislist@geocomm.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 5:34 PM
Subject: RE: GISList: ArcView vs MapInfo vs Manifold
>
> > Does any one knows about an study, report, whitepaper, etc that compares
> > functionality, cost/benefit, friendliness and WebGis capabilities of
above
> > mentioned software? I know any of them has its weakness and
>
> I don't know of a three-way comparison, but I agree that would be very
> helpful for the GIS community. There are some informal comments, such as
> the famous posting to Manifold-L comparing Manifold to ArcView, ArcInfo
8.1
> and AutoDesk Map at
>
> http://www.manifold.net/news/posting1.html
>
> Manifold would be happy to provide a free copy to any journalist writing a
> review/comparison for a legitimate ezine or other journal. I have to say,
> though, that there are practical and business obstacles to arranging a
> review.
>
> One practical obstacle is that seriously reviewing a product of the scale
of
> Manifold (1.4 million lines of code, with 2600 pages in the User Manual)
> takes a lot of full-time work. Assuming you don't want a review that
> simply regurgitates our marketing propaganda you need a fairly experienced
> character to report on all the many features. It's not easy finding
someone
> who is expert in vector work, knows enough about remote sensing and
> sophisticated image operations, has a lot of experience in databases, can
> write sensibly about scripting using sophisticated debugging tools, and so
> on. Reviewing Manifold is like reviewing ArcInfo 8.x, Spatial Analyst,
> ArcIMS, ArcSDE, SQL Server, Visual Studio and PhotoShop or ERDAS all
rolled
> into one. That's a very expensive project for the relatively small
> journalistic organizations that report on GIS.
>
> A business obstacle is that no GIS ezine or journal is financially strong
> enough to criticize its advertisers. Manifold to date has not advertised,
> preferring to put all funds into development and customer service and
> depending upon word of mouth references for expansion. While we are very
> grateful for the occasional coverage we receive from various ezines, we
> understand that a major review of Manifold is just not going to happen so
> long as we don't advertise. Simply put, there is no way an ezine can
afford
> to publish a three way review that states the product of a non-advertiser
> works a lot better, is easier to use, does a lot more and costs a fraction
> of products offered by those advertisers who keep the ezine in business.
We
> don't expect our friends in journalism to commit financial suicide.
>
> One way around this might be for an academic or other public institution
to
> sponsor s
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