AllPointsBlog.com has an article that caught my attention. Dell seems to be allowing customers to use Google Earth Pro to track their service calls around the world. I’ve always liked when companies use mapping to help consumers visualize data. The only “problem” with this service is the requirement that businesses that want to utilize this service must buy Google Earth Pro. Since you can’t use Google Earth “Free” in the work place, there isn’t anything Dell can do about it so it is up to the consumer to buy software. Too bad they can’t throw in a copy of GE Pro (maybe they plan to do this). I guess consumers could use such a service at home, but I can’t imagine many needing to track service calls around the world.
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James Fee - jfee@weogeo.com
James works for WeoGeo helping people organize, share and monetize their geo-content.
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Seems a bit strange to need a $400 piece of software to track a $600 piece of hardware. What precisely is the allure of paying to see a dot in 3D when you can see a dot in 2D for free from the shipper’s web site?
The Dell KML’s may work with World Wind’s KMLImporter… anyone have one to try it with?
Since you cannot use the free version at work, the third paragraph makes it clear as to the intended audience…
“The idea is to make it simpler and easier for medium to large businesses using Dell to maintain their systems, said Steve Meyer, vice president of Dell Services.”
The confusion may be with the term “customer” and not specifying “business customer” within the article.
could be wrong…just a guess…if you have $10,000+ in inventory the $400 is minimal, even if you buy several, when trying to track where things are through other means.
I’m still not seeing how it makes sense for a medium/large business to justify spending $400 just to see a point in 3D. If they have Google Earth for other reasons, fine, but just to see the point in 3D? Seems debatable.
What if you worked for a company that had thousands of workstations all over the world? Probably not a huge deal to spend $400 to better manage your workflow.
Actually let me clarify my point….
$400 isn’t a big deal for almost any company trying to get a handle on their service contract.
I’m not saying that $400 isn’t a problem if you want to deploy GE Pro though. Ask anyone who has spent the last 10 years deploying Adobe Acrobat Pro/Standard in a corporate environment. It is very very expensive.
So for the IT office at a large/mid size company to get 1 or two copies of GE Pro isn’t a big deal. But if you wished to do something similar for tracking lets say UPS or FedEx and deploy over the whole organization, it would be cost prohibitive and probably best left for some online mapping solution.
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