The ESRI Software Survey
I started filling out the same survey that J Singh blogged about and I’m going to try and read the tea leaves and figure out exactly what ESRI is really asking here. J posted mostly about the DVD questions so I won’t bother with that, but the ArcGIS Data Interoperability extension questions got me thinking. The question before talked about the ArcPress which is now available “free” with any ArcView or greater license asks if you actually use it. Seems like a pretty good question. Then the next three talk about the ArcGIS Data Interoperability extension; do you have it, do you use it and will you buy it. No other questions about any other extensions. I’m going to read between the lines here (this is partly hope) and guess ESRI is beginning to think that the ArcGIS Data Interoperability extension might be best rolled up into the standard ArcGIS deployment, much like ArcPress is (not that too many people care about ArcPress these days). Of course there is no way to really tell that this is the case, but it makes just so much sense from ESRI’s part to include interoperability by default that they really need to just do so (and with an ArcView license).
The next question got me thinking too, do you still use ArcInfo Workstation. Could ESRI be thinking of moving away from Workstation being released beyond 9.x? Pretty good question…
I don’t have any deep thoughts about the survey, but I wish they’d make their surveys work with Firefox. This is the second one I’ve done recently where I got all the way through the survey, then couldn’t submit it because I kept getting an error saying I missed a required field. I then re-did the survey in IE and it worked fine. I guess I’ll start in IE with these things from now on.
Chris, I had the same problem in Firefox, but I figured out that the problem was with their form validation. It required you to complete an “optional” drop-down menu that followed another optional question. When I chose something arbitrary in the menu, it submitted fine. Which leads me to another annoyance with 99% of forms. Tell me which fields need correction in an easy-to-read way. Don’t make me guess!
Anyway, James, I thought the same thing about the Data Interop. extension. In fact in the comments section after the question, I stated that we would like to use it, but wouldn’t buy it since it seemed like something that should already be included “in-the-box.” Just like the ArcMap Server extension for ArcIMS a few years ago. They wanted 5 grand for that thing! The blowback from the community changed their minds on that one, I think.
I was disasppointed they didn’t ask about interest in open source RDBMS apps. I heard a rumor a while back about supporting ArcSDE on PostGreSQL. Overall, I’m not real impressed with the development progress of ESRI’s server software, namely SDE and IMS. To me, those should be given away as a means to sell more seats of their true GIS software. ArcIMS 9.1 hasn’t improved in functionality since version 3, and SDE is simply thin middleware between ArcGIS and an RDBMS system. Yes, it does a lot of magic in the background, but seriously…PostGreSQL can already do this with the PostGIS extension.
/rant over.
Boy, I’d really like to see the Data Interop. be part of the standard ArcView. I wish my work would let me get the extension, but they can’t budget it.
*sigh*
If 9.2 has DVDs and the Data Interop., I’ll be in heaven!
Why not build this right into ArcGIS and not require an extension at all? Sign me up!
Hmmm,
yeah, DI should have been included in ArcGIS 9. LAst year when I took my GIS program it bugged my instructors to no end when they were telling us about how nice it was to have those file conversions in 8.3
I’m not sure how it would affect SAFE software’s businees model. In some ways, I’m sure the inclusion of DI in ArcGIS would affect them negatively (no need for their basic FME product for some small organizations and customers) but considering FME is on top of all the GIS and non-GIS data formats, I doubt in the long run it would affect them. Unless of course, the whole GIS software industry went open-source overnight
Keep up the good work James, your blog keeps me updated on the GIS industry!
I dont believe they (ESRI) will include the DI extension into the core product as they currently have to pay Safe royalties when they sell it.