Ed, I’ve got a request now that you are at Google

Ed, I’ve Got a Request Now That You Are at Google

April 5th, 2007 · 35 Comments · GIS, Google, Google Earth

Private sector clients of ours can’t or won’t use Google Earth as a client to our products until the EULA is fixed, can you address this? If Google Earth is to be more than a tool to locate flying airplanes in satellite imagery, we’ll need to see this addressed very soon.

Thanks,

James (Concerned GIS Professional)

Tags:

35 responses so far ↓

1 Gretch // Apr 5, 2007 at 11:16 am

Agreed, our company has given up trying to market Google Earth as a solution and we’ve focused on Virtual Earth 3D.

James, keep pushing this! There are many of us who really want to see this changed.
2 oakfish // Apr 5, 2007 at 11:36 am

James,

Can you give a few specifics about what those issues are that need to be addressed?
3 MnkyTalk // Apr 5, 2007 at 12:06 pm

Agreed, thats been a major problem. Even though we develop proto types, there is no way we can get them out..

@James: Is ArcGIS Explorer avaialble for public use or you need to be a Licensee..in order to use it? Thanks..
4 Chad // Apr 5, 2007 at 12:31 pm

Or don’t… it sends more interest to World Wind then … oh come on, you know I had to say it
5 James Fee // Apr 5, 2007 at 12:47 pm

@oakfish

Read more of the issue here. If you want to use Google Earth in a commercial situation, even if it is just a GIS viewer, you need to purchase the pro version. I don’t disagree that Google might need to charge for GE to be in commercial situations, but $400 is way too much as a viewer.

If GE will ever be the Acrobat Reader of geospatial information, this needs to be addressed.
6 SKG // Apr 5, 2007 at 1:06 pm

How does EULA apply to non-profits and NGOs? I know Google.org is giving GE Pro licenses to non-profits that apply but what about the rest?
7 KoS // Apr 5, 2007 at 1:23 pm

boooo GE!!

KoS
8 Frank // Apr 6, 2007 at 6:00 am

Ed, I don’t know you, but now that you’re at Google, please convince the Googleplex to purchase Redlands in whole, burn it to the ground, and start over fresh. ESRI needs to be purged and rebuilt. 9.2 is a terrible mess of unstable and borderline-unusable alpha software.

plzthx
9 Lefty // Apr 6, 2007 at 6:29 am

Frank, I don’t know you…

but you are a troll
10 Frank // Apr 6, 2007 at 9:04 am

Lefty,

But I’m such a serious troll. Check out the 900 pages of bug fixes at Service Pack 2 if you don’t believe me:

http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=downloads.patchesServicePacks.viewPatch&PID=66&MetaID=1259
11 James Fee // Apr 6, 2007 at 9:26 am

Frank,

Pigs will fly before Google would ever have a chance at buying a private company like ESRI. Over Jack’s dead body is applicable here.
12 Bill // Apr 6, 2007 at 8:24 pm

In response to Oakfish, here are some specifics. In short, we convince our management to spend $400/year for GE Pro by telling them the licensing has to change in the future and current situation is only temporary. Our purchasing department tries to buy 10 licenses but can’t because each license must be associated with a unique e-mail. Once we wrestle through that problem, we attempt to install GE on 10 machines, and assume that our 10 licensed users can use any of these machines. Wrong. The EULA is setup so that only ONE user can use GE on ONE machine. So to be legal, when a person wants to work on another workstation they must uninstall GE from the previous workstation they were on, and reinstall on the new one.

I understand the enterprise client gets around some of these issues, but the thing is we primarily want GE to view and work with KML. We don’t care so much about the imagery or additional layers from GE’s servers or an enterprise server. In fact, many times we run GE disconnected with just some cached imagery and terrain. I understand Google wanting people to pay for data, but they should loosen the reins on the client SW…in the end it will only help them.
13 400 is a deal // Apr 8, 2007 at 2:33 pm

you’re not paying $400 for the GE browser. you’re paying $400 for the right to use the massive and constantly updated google earth image library. the cost and hassle avoided by not having to ask a gis “specialist” to order, receive, load to geodatabase and serve through arcgis server is well worth the price for an anual subscription. considering that you get nothing but a white screen and a couple of old road maps with arc”view” google view is an amazing deal. 50 happy google earth pro users in an organization at $400 get a pretty good head start compared to the cost of an arc server license
14 Bill // Apr 8, 2007 at 4:17 pm

“400 is a deal” - right on, fully agree $400/year/person/computer could be considered a fair price for the right to use the massive and constantly updated GE image library, etc….

The question is if I want to use the GE browser w/o that data (or a small disconnected subset of that data) what does it cost? The answer is it cost $400/year/person/computer. For some, using GE with just KML and WMS fits the bill and can be of value even when not connected to GE or enterprise servers. Some people are asking Google to make the license less restrictive so the GE browser can be used this way. When using GE in this way Google’s servers would not be accessed and their resources would not be consumed by a bunch of freeloaders. A license which allows liberal stand alone usage would result in a larger GE user base most of which at some point are going to want Google’s data on a large scale at which point they will pay Google for their services…which is the way it should be in a services based marketplace!

On the flip side, if Google doesn’t do this, folks will continue to migrate to competing products like World Wind, ARCGIS Explorer, Virtual Earth, TerraExplorer and others. These products are becoming viable alternatives as they mature.
15 James Fee // Apr 8, 2007 at 7:58 pm

@ 400 is a deal

I can use VE3D with any such restrictions.

*shrug*

If Google doesn’t care for GE to be the default GIS viewer, then that is fine by me as we’ll just use VE. Personally I’d rather just go with what people are already using at home for free, but if not then tell me now and I’ll stop using KML.
16 GE Pro user // Apr 9, 2007 at 10:24 am

Our global company is one of many that pays Google tens of thousands each year for hundreds of our users to have access to the imagery and other “base layers”. Sure it’s not perfect (no software is) and a free dumbed-down viewer version would be great for business users, but the value of GE Pro to our company is very easy to justify today - and has been for the past few years.

VE is nothing to compare for end user functionality. WW and AGE do not have enough high-resolution data off-the-shelf.

We also have no problem paying $495 for Google SketchUp when the consumer has it for free.

In business you get what you pay for.
17 Ryan Morgan // Apr 9, 2007 at 12:28 pm

Remember that one needs to purchase Adobe’s Acrobat Pro to make a .pdf, but one need only download Reader to read a .pdf. I think GE has the right to charge for a Pro version, but agree the license needs to be more portable between computers. (Hint: no two machines can log in under the same account at the same time.)
18 Chris C. // Apr 9, 2007 at 1:24 pm

@ Ryan

I can make a PDF with the various free PDF makers, I use PrimoPDF, and can generate PDFs using Manifold. I don’t think that’s a good comparison.
19 mosim // Apr 9, 2007 at 1:37 pm

A Pro license can be installed on a laptop - so it’s possible to make it portable (in writing from sales team). Still this doesn’t solve the problem.

I participated in a usability study at Google last week for GE and the “login in” issue was the first test - also addressed Ryan Morgans “Hint”. So, they’re thinking about it…I think. I also made it clear a floating license would solve some workplace issues as well. Hope it gets through…hope they’ll invite me back so I can really tell them what’s on my mind.
20 Chris C. // Apr 9, 2007 at 1:39 pm

…or maybe it is a good comparison - price your product too high and lose thousands of customers who find free or cheaper alternatives.
21 Chad // Apr 9, 2007 at 3:44 pm

I just wonder if they can explain their terms of use enforcement…

http://www.allpointsblog.com/archives/2714-Following-EULAs.html
http://bullsworld.blogspot.com/2007/04/so-what-is-googles-policy-for-enforcing.html

Sofar they only seems to enforce their ToS a very few times.. and only when they get called on it.
22 James Fee // Apr 9, 2007 at 9:25 pm

@GE Pro User

So if my clients don’t want to pay for GE Pro, then I should look elsewhere for my KML viewer? I’m beginning to get that feeling.

@Chris C.

You don’t need GE to author KML so technically you can create KML for free.
23 Chris C. // Apr 10, 2007 at 6:25 am

@ James,

You are right James, I can also create KML for vector and images in my humble little GIS program

I still can’t use GE as a viewer commercially for the KML unless I cough up the $400/user.
24 Chad // Apr 10, 2007 at 6:31 am

@Chris,

Have you tried the World Wind KMLImporter?

http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/KMLImporter

Doesn’t fully support polygons or buildings yet, but most correctly formatted KMLs/KMZs should work (Though knowing the luck of things, polygons are what you need).
25 Walt // Apr 10, 2007 at 12:08 pm

@400 is a deal

For my home county, GE is still using several year old images. Why would I pay for that privilege? I can get nearly as good quality from WW for free.
26 jackelm // Apr 11, 2007 at 7:12 am

@ 400 is a deal

I knew this would eventually come up, but for $295 you can have Manifold and the ability to link to VE as your background layer. And, you have the full topological tools that Manifold offers. In addition, you can have the IMS package for that price too.

Sorry to trumpet Manifold again, but honestly, for things like this, it just keeps cropping up
27 The Earth Is Square » Blog Archive » The “Acrobat Reader of Geospatial Information” could be Acrobat Reader? // Apr 11, 2007 at 7:32 am

[...] pointed out that if GE wants to be the “go all place” for GIS information, the ELUA really needs to be [...]
28 KoS // Apr 11, 2007 at 8:26 am

I’m reposting my comments on Chad’s blog concerning this topic:

ESRI does offer export to PDF in 9.2 which doesn’t combine the various layers into one. It keeps all the layers separate. Which allows someone in the exported pdf file turn-on and off the various layers of interest.

Take a look at the new “What’s new in ArcGIS 9.2 March 2007″ pdf on page 134. They give a brief explaintion.

So, kinda, a canned GIS viewer.

Note, I haven’t had the opportunity to use the function yet. Still waiting on them to install 9.2, but they have been running to problems given all the crap the USDA maked people jump through getting software approved and tested.

KoS
29 Chris C. // Apr 11, 2007 at 9:16 am

Layered PDFs.

Nice to see ArcGIS implementing something that’s been in Manifold quite a while. I’d hope there’s an option not to have separate layers too.
30 James Fee // Apr 11, 2007 at 9:31 am

Of course there is Chris.
31 Jason F // Apr 13, 2007 at 10:19 am

Cadcorp has layered PDFs as well - it pays to look outside of the ESRI box once in a while!
32 KoS // Apr 13, 2007 at 1:16 pm

Jason F……I look outside of the box all the time. My agency seems to have a problem looking outside of the box.

I use what is given to me or which is allowed.

KoS
33 Walt // Apr 13, 2007 at 1:21 pm

@ Jason F

Are you saying that other companies make GIS products? I’ve never heard of such a thing.
34 DavidB // Apr 16, 2007 at 3:08 pm

@ Jason F

Had a visit to the Cadcorp site here in England a month or so ago…not much love for the ESRI folks. To their credit, they didn’t talk ESRI down so much as talk themselves up in comparison.
35 Tom Harrington // Aug 12, 2007 at 7:20 am

Am a mapping novice trying to use GE PRO for mapping biomass growing and conversion sites at several sites in North America. Is it worth it?