Geoprocessing With ArcView
I just spent the last hour trying to help someone over instant messenger perform some GIS analysis using ArcView. Lets just say the hoops you have to jump through to get ArcView to accomplish tasks that are actually simple in ArcInfo is aggravating. I know many people have ArcView and try and use some 3rd party tools to do but lets get this out on the table; ArcView is a viewer, ArcEditor is for editing Geodatabases and ArcInfo is for GIS analysis. I don’t think ESRI has been as vocal enough with their users, telling them not to use ArcView as an analysis tool, as they should be. As the new Geoprocessing tools take off in 9.2, you are really shortchanging yourself by not upgrading to ArcInfo if at all possible. Actually lets be honest here, with the new Cartography tools at 9.2 you’ll want to have an ArcEditor license anyway to create these new cartographic features, otherwise you are just going to be on the outside looking in.
At a minimum any serious GIS Analyst using ESRI software needs a copy of ArcEditor to do their job. Yes you can hack your way though a job just using an ArcView, but if you work in an ESRI shop and stuck on ArcView, I’d be spending this summer working on figuring out how to upgrade my copy of ArcView to at least ArcEditor to be ready for when ArcGIS 9.2 arrives.
Yeah, I totally agree. ArcView doesn’t really do all that much. For $250, you could get a newbie to work with Manifold and do more geoprocessing. When I was at the local tech college last year, we had to look into this issue as part of a GIS implementation project.
I spoke to a GIS Manager at a local regional gov’t and he had the same thoughts. He even thought ArcEditor wasn’t enough for someone doing a lot of GIS work.
My 2cents is that I don’t agree with ESRI’s policy on cartographic tools and witholding them from ArcView.
At a minimum - the medium of communication for the GIS community is the map (or at least that is frequently the value placed on GIS-users by GIS-consumers). Making the best map possible (digial or hardcopy) is a primary objective that all ESRI packages should support. Spatial editing, RDBMS integration, spatial modeling, etc. - all that can be ‘value added’ products for sale in more advanced versions - but making a kick-a$& map should be base-level intro functionality.
Does anyone else think they actually ‘regressed’ the base labeling engine at 9.0 compared to 8.3 (in an effort to push sales of MapPlex - that was bundled with ArcInfo at 9.something)?
I totally agree with Paul. More than 80% of ArcGIS desktop users work with an ArcView license (at least in the german market) to do some “simple” analysis and geoprocessing tasks and to make the results visually available (draw maps).
If ESRI wants ArcGIS known as popular cartography tool they should bundle the new cartography tools with ArcView and not ArcEditor. I guess only a minority of existing users will upgrade to an ArcEditor license just because of some new “add-ons”…
ESRI needs to stop nickel-and-diming the customer to death. How much do they spend on marketing 100 products and license management? They’d probably make more money if they just had one platform (ArcInfo) that included all the extensions for $10K.
About Maplex…
I’ve never used the full-blown version, only what was packaged with 9.2. That can’t be all there is to it is there? It’s not very robust if so and MapText’s Label-EZ is far, far superior.
You said it James, “yes you can hack your way though a job just using an ArcView”. I have been hacking my way through for years on various versions of ArcView. I agree with the comments above that ESRI does need to better thier product teirs and stop nickle and diming the users.
If they made it more explicit that we need ArcEditor or Info, I bet more non-GIS managers would agree to purchase it. I wish they would follow SDG’s advice and trim thier product line to a few really good products.
just my 2 cents…
I was just digging through the website the other day trying to a) Figure out just what each level would do, and b) Find out the approximate costs. For b) I had to do a bunch of web searches to get an approximate answer, but a) still isn’t clear. I’ve ordered a copy of ‘Getting to Know Arcgis’ which will hopefully have better explanations.. but is the general idea to force you to talk with the Sales department?
BobC, I don’t think it’s the general idea, I think it’s the EXACT idea.
http://www.esri.com/library/fliers/pdfs/arcgis91-functionality.pdf
This was a 2 second search. They aren’t hiding it from anyone.
-Mark
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Thank you, Mark. I had missed that, and it was exactly what I was looking for.
Mark is correct that they are not hiding the functionality; but when the documentation is 30 pages of 6pt font - how is a ‘new’ or ‘novice’ person supposed to translate (for example) the “calculate default cluster tolerance” (p. 24 of Mark’s pdf link) into something meaningful?
Naturally, there is a strong argument for “if you don’t know what it is you don’t need the functionality”; but if the basic theme is that the product line has reached a generally confusing state for those in the “know” - much less those new to the software - then I think the pdf link above is Exhibit A. There is another representation of this via an E-size pdf in the product documentation that has (I swear) 4pt font and requires you read it from 3 inches away or go blind trying.
Simplification of the product line to maybe a general (ArcEdit) and an advanced (ArcInfo) level would seem to be in everyone’s interest.
Understandably there was sticker shock for the old AView 3.x users and the ArcView line was necessary for a time to entice those users over to the new platform. But those days are gone - those that were going to migrate have migrated and now there is 30 pages of documentation detailing the various functionality of 3 levels of the ArcGIS desktop - it’s too much for me just managing the different seat types and the associated functionality; specifically it consumes too much time communicating the differences to end users who just want to understand what they can and can’t do.
While these comments may seem critical; I still wish I could by some common shares of ESRI stock : )
All these ideas are interesting, but if ArcView was eliminated of the ArcGIS licence line, there would be some serious need for price readjustment.
In old Europe, ArcGIS prices are between 2x and 3x the price of the US prices.
The price of ArcEditor is that high that very many users over here have to work with ArcView because that’s all they can afford…
That’s why european users often have to hack their ways through ArcView rather than using ArcInfo …
Sure, big organizations can afford floating ArcEditor and ArcInfo licences, but small organisations just can’t and that’s a pity …