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| Subject: | RE: GISList: Re: OGC and Standards, small comment |
| Date: |
01/07/2003 11:20:53 AM |
| From: |
Dimitri Rotow |
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>
> > You can see the lack of fresh development in GIS where, except for
> Manifold,
> > there has been no new major package emerge and the existing
> legacy vendors
> > introduced nothing substantial. Line extension products, yes, major new
> > entrants, no. Yes, ESRI introduced the "8" series but this is just a
> fresh
> > coat of paint over the same basic ESRI ideas that date back to the '80s,
> and
> > even that was delayed by what, three years? Even today, no one
> is making
> > the investment into desktop GIS that we are. For example,
> MapInfo appears
> to
> > have given up on the desktop, hoping that LBS will make it an
> economically
> > viable concern.
>
> I'm sorry to tell you that there are other fresh development in GIS,
> look for GE Smallworld, look for CadCorp, look for Geomedia,
> and of course ESRI, and the development in the spatial-engines
> in the RDBMS data providers, and others ....
>
You apparently have a lower standard for "fresh development" than I do.
The packages you enumerate are all very old applications that went into a
sort of suspended animation during the three years of the dot-com boom and
bust cycle. What passes for "fresh developments" are trivialities, a
repackaging of the same old stuff. You don't, for example, see ESRI coming
out with a genuine new architecture that takes advantage of modern progress
in software and hardware technology. Instead, you see them re-do the same
old thing, just ported to Windows using Microsoft standards for a change.
They do admit the need to move to more modern architectures. For example,
they made many announcements at the last user conference that in the future
they will move to "topology on the fly." However, Manifold has had topology
on the fly for four years now. If ESRI was seriously investing in new
technology they'd have it by now as well. Instead, in the year 2001 they
were only finally getting around to releasing a true Windows implementation
(the 8 stuff). Most vendors started doing real Windows ports in 1995, so a
six-year time delay is nothing to be proud of, not to mention porting the
same old thing to Windows is not really a fresh development: it's a fresh
coat of paint on the same old thing.
Oracle Spatial, for another example, is a very old technology that was not
altered significantly, apparently because Oracle invested heavily (and
inefficiently) into net dreams. In fact, Oracle might provide a case
history of the perils of neglecting real demands while chasing political
and/or dot-com rainbows.
Larry Ellison was one of the biggest backers of the Network PC idea. I have
to admit, that given a man of Ellison's "can do" attitude and immense wealth
I can see how he pushed this idea forward as a counter to Microsoft. It was
a bold strategic move from a man known for boldness. But ultimately, the
Network PC idea was fatally flawed from a basic physics perspective no
matter how good it was as a strategic product-marketing idea. It lost
billions for its backers and more importantly, lost a lot of mindshare at a
time when Oracle's core products badly needed updating. While Ellison was
pushing money into Network PC and dot-com stuff, Microsoft was pushing money
into making SQL Server a stronger application.
If you believe what you read in the various database publications, Microsoft
made the better bet because now they have gained significant share from
Oracle. One of the many casualties of a misguided Oracle focus was that
Oracle Spatial did not significantly evolve and the Oracle DBMS suite of
products lost a beat in the competitive race with Microsoft.
By the way, it is interesting to note that while Larry Ellison is an
absolute genius at sales and marketing, he has no personal educational
background in hard science, which I think in this case may have led him to
underestimate the fundamental constraints about which he had to weave his
marketing strategy. In contrast, Steve Ballmer, the President at Microsoft,
took his undergraduate degree in physics at Harvard before going on to
Harvard Business School. Steve may not be the sales wizard Ellison is, but
he is a real genius at operations management and is so sharp at physics he
could have easily gone on to a career in physics.
> This is real, and they're making good job, not only Manifold !!!!
> I know that Manifold price is not compitive with other vendors,
> but price is not the only factor !!!
>
You are absolutely right. Price is not the only factor. But, just as in
the minicomputer extinction event, if a given product has superior power,
capability and ease of use and also happens to cost 20 times less, then
price tends to be a decisive factor. If word processors still cost $15,000
to $50,000 per seat as they did in the days of the WangW
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