|
|
| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
| |
| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | RE: GISList: Interior e-gov tack irks GIS vendors (Geospatial One-Stop initiative) |
| Date: |
04/16/2003 10:25:01 AM |
| From: |
Anthony Quartararo |
|
|
This is quite interesting. Who was it that recently claimed that politics
had no role in OGC ? It would appear, at least superficially, that ESRI was
at the least hedging it's bet. While this is not an unusual tack in this or
any other industry, especially for the giant with cannibalistic business
practices, but it does seem rather poignant in this instance. We can only
muse why ESRI would not throw 100% commitment behind the OGC approach.
The article seems to blame the OMB for "pitting" ESRI against OGC, but why
wouldn't the OMB and it's customers want to have alternatives/competition
for the technology strategy that will guide the Homeland "Security"
department for years to come. There's a lot at stake, not the least of
which is a lot of taxpayer money. I mean, OGC gets $450K to prototype an
architecture? I can see a lot of extra 0's getting added to the end of that
figure once this is scaled up if it ever gets off the ground. I'd be
curious to know if OGC doled out some or all of that $450K to certain
members to do the actual work, and I wonder if ESRI received some of that,
or was it all gratis ? Jeff Burnett's contention that OGC is "basically
[we're] not the vendor" doesn't jive: they get a contract for $450K and
they're not a vendor? I beg to differ.
Basically, OMB pays out almost a Million $ (the combined contracts are worth
$825K, but add to that the cost of OMB staffers doing the RFP and the entire
bloated federal RFP process, and I bet it's over a million), for a prototype
to compare what is essentially the de facto standard within the
Federal/State/Local government institutions (ESRI) with OGC, which certainly
has a large membership, of which ESRI is a major force, and has contributed
to the technical development of the open specifications process, etc.
Occum's razor right ? The most likely answer is the simplest one.
On a slightly different note, the article purports that "much of the data is
difficult to access", referring to the needs of emergency responders and
others when it comes to spatial data. However, I'd argue that this
difficulty in access is more of a policy matter among different government
organizations within a jurisdiction and others at State and Federal levels,
rather than a bits n bytes "access" issue. I find it hard to believe that
if ESRI does indeed command a 70% market share in the Government market,
that there is any sort of real "spatial data" access issue at all.
I know this is probably going to wear thin on some folks, so I'll cut it
short here, but nonetheless, reading articles like this and seeing a
confirmation of suspicions only makes the entire issue that much more
distasteful. To each his I owns suppose, but it's such a big waste of time
and money.
Regards,
Anthony
> -----Original Message-----
=20
> Good afternoon,
>=20
> Not sure how many of you out there have seen this article=20
> yet? Comments?
>=20
> http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0414/news-gis-04-14-03.asp
>=20
> Interior e-gov tack irks GIS vendors
> GIS Consortium, vendor work on parallel tasks
> BY Megan Lisagor
> April 14, 2003
>=20
> Under pressure to get the Geospatial One-Stop portal up and=20
> running, the=20
> Interior Department has created a stir by pitting one of the leading=20
> geographic information system (GIS) vendors against the work=20
> of an industry=20
> consortium.
>=20
> The Web-based portal, one of 24 governmentwide initiatives=20
> led by the Office=20
> of Management and Budget, will house geospatial information=20
> and services=20
> supplied by federal, state and local agencies. Instead of=20
> having to search=20
> multiple sites and deal with data stored in different=20
> formats, users will=20
> turn to Geospatial One-Stop for all their GIS needs.
>=20
> In December 2002, Interior partnered with Open GIS Consortium=20
> (OGC) Inc., an=20
> international group of 254 companies, government agencies and=20
> universities,=20
> giving it $450,000 to develop a prototype and underlying architecture.
>=20
> The consortium's main thrust, which made it a natural for the=20
> project, is=20
> the formation of open specifications that enable interoperability.
>=20
> But after forging an agreement, some Interior officials had=20
> second thoughts.=20
> Besides being one of the Bush administration's highly touted=20
> e-government=20
> initiatives, Geospatial One-Stop is eagerly anticipated by the first=20
> responder community as a much-needed resource for maps and=20
> other geographic=20
> data.
>=20
> Later, at a meeting in February, the Geospatial One-Stop=20
> board of directors=20
> voted to strike a second agreement with ESRI, an OGC member.=
|
|
Sponsored by:
For information
regarding
advertising rates
Click Here!
|
