Demystifying the Geospatial Business Landscape
BY MATT SHEEHAN Business Analysis Demystifying the Demystifying the Geospatial Geospatial Business Landscape Business Landscape T he landscape of the geospatial industry is undergoing rapid changes; some suggest a geo-revolution is underway. This article looks at these changes as well as some of the technical considerations and options now available. Historically, the industry has been dominated by a number of large companies, most focused on GIS. With the launch of Google Maps in November 2005, however, things began to change. Suddenly, slippy tiled base maps began appearing, and inquisitive program-mers learned how to extend Google's map offerings, encouraging Google to make its APIs public. It became easy to add maps to Web sites, and a wide range of data could be displayed. Most popular were points of interest, such as restaurant locations and places of business. Yahoo! and Microsoft soon entered the market, MapQuest extended its offering, and ESRI broad-ened its business. In addition, new geospatial companies started appearing, and geo-communities and conferences were enthusiastically launched. Great things have been written about the geospatial industry's future. Nimble companies now have many new and exciting opportunities to enter the geo-market or extend prod-uct offerings. It's worth looking at some of the factors a new company may need to consider. The Geospatial Business Planning All successful businesses start with a great idea and then follow the usual planning steps: thorough market research, competitive analysis and the writing of a business plan or blueprint for the fledgling company. Two key pieces to this plan include: 1. How will the business make money? 2. Promotion/marketing. With this in place, consideration next is given to the sin-gle biggest pre-launch expense: software development. Software Development Technical decisions are made based on requirements and cost. In today's geo-space, there are several key considerations, including the following: Â Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) RIAs often are referenced in articles, but remain poorly understood. G E O W O R L D / S E P T E M B E R 2 O O 9 20