Some years ago, when Mapquest was purchased for a huge sum of money, it was said to be the dawn of a new age. The billion dollar purchase excited observers, but the sun never really came up on that dawn. Today is different. I am convinced that the recent activities by Google (Google Earth) and Microsoft (purchase of both GeoTango and Vexcel) will be important. They will profoundly change the way that our service economy functions.
As with all change, some won't like it - and many won't survive.
Microsoft will use GeoTango to enhance its local search offering. That the local search market is huge cannot be denied. Here in Canada, Google Earth is already linked to the listings of one of the largest real estate groups in North America - ReMax.
Let's back up a bit. It wasn't long ago on these pages that I was writing about the importance of height information on the web. I mentioned an innovative product produced by GeoTango. I wrote that piece late last year. Shortly after, GeoTango became the first of Microsoft's geospatial investments.
Hard on the heels of that was the Vexcel announcement. Vexcel had itself been a buyer of companies and technologies over the past few years. It bought Atlantis Scientific of Canada and its work in interferometric SAR for subsidence, and the ISM software for digital photogrammetry. It also made substantial investments in its digital camera
It seems clear that Microsoft executives see the third dimension - height - as the thing that will enable them to claw back Google's lead. Height makes it possible to integrate imagery and geospatial information as a framework for exploring our world - and bringing together buyers and sellers of products and services.
Microsoft and its partners are now busy building up airborne coverage of urban areas the world over, through the digital mapping systems they have recently purchased.
The extent of coverage is given on the Microsoft Virtual Earth website at www.microsoft.com/virtualearth/products/ webservice/regional.mspx.
Why is height important to Microsoft? I suggest that there are two reasons. First, it allows the company to provide a more real experience. Second, it allows Microsoft to differentiate itself from its competitors.
The renewed focus on geospatial information is good news. Someone from outside our industry is demonstrating what we have been saying for years: geospatial information is the foundation upon which our economies are based.
It has been my experience that every time a broader segment of the population sees geospatial information, the use of that information increases. An anecdote explains what can happen. When I was selling satellite imagery in Canada in the mid-1980s, I recall two rather dishevelled individuals coming into our offices to buy Landsat imagery of forest fires that had occurred in Western Canada a year earlier.
They owned a wild mushroom picking company and wanted to locate areas where there had been fires in certain tree species the previous summer. (And they really did drive a pink Cadillac convertible!)
It turned out that certain types of valuable wild mushrooms could be found in these year-old burned-over areas. They had seen some imagery in a popular magazine and had reached the correct conclusion that they could use the data in their business. That they did so without benefit of research scientists, specialised training, government grants or consultants or companies offering services should make us think about what the future may hold for Geomatics.
This broader exposure is what Google Earth has done, and what Microsoft has said that it will do.
The intent seems clear. Yes, Microsoft and Google want to sell their software. Yes, they want to sell advertising on their sites. But to do so, they are adding value through the integration of different information sources.
But if we look at the real strategic objective, it seems that they are not only seeking to dominate the knowledge economy and the service economy, they are also planning to re-build it, block by block, on a geospatial framework.
That focus on the geospatial framework and the exposure they bring to the industry's products should provide great opportunity for the more adventurous, adaptable, and forward thinking in the geospatial or position industry. The less adventurous and less adaptable will simply go away.
Bob Ryerson bryerson@kimgeomatics.com is a former director of the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing and the president of Kim Geomatics Corp
