When I first met Halsey Wise in 2003, he had just taken on the job of chief executive at Intergraph Corp. This year, I met him again at the company's annual conference in Florida. It was a chance, I thought, to find out how much he had grown into his job and how much his thinking had evolved.
On the evidence of our meeting in June, the answer seems to be 'pretty well'. The conference itself was a good insight into the changes that have renovated the company over the past few years. It was big and bold, and had the kind of buzz you expect when 2000 people, from 64 different countries, attend.
But first, to set the scene: the company made a name for itself as a purveyor of graphics hardware, in the days when graphics was hard to do. But when graphics became possible on a PC, and PCs became a commodity item, Intergraph appeared to be a company with a very bad business model.
Wise's mission was to define a new model. His bet: that the software side of graphics would continue to be difficult, and would thus attract a premium. He defined a rigorous change process that is now starting to bear fruit. The company's vision is still about graphics, but now it's about using it to understand complex data input, and making real time decisions based on those graphics.
To that end, Intergraph has developed a swag of technology and rapidly evolving software tools - of which its GIS is one significant component. All are linked by the use of high-end graphics. The guiding principle behind the next generation of products from Intergraph will be the development of a common product architecture. There will also be a general move towards real time technology.
'Both of these trends will be driven by the needs of homeland security. The need is unfortunate, but it is a reality of our lives, and will remain so,' he said.
'From our point of view, there are two key issues. One is to find better ways of managing the response to terrorist incidents. The other is in prevention. In both cases, the key technology is in the intelligent use of graphics and imagery. In that field, we aim to be world-beaters.
'It goes without saying that geoinformation is a crucial part of this vision. The primary question in any emergency is where? Where did the incident occur; where are the victims; where are the perpetrators; where are the resources I need to fix the problem? These are all spatial questions, so of course, GIS is a key part of solving the problem.
'This may seem like a very US-centric view of the world. But I suggest that the systems we are developing to fight terrorism are essentially the same as the ones we need to use to respond to another tsunami - such as the one that struck Indonesia in 2004, or earthquakes or cyclones,' he said.
At a technical level, the conference, and my interview with Wise, afforded some intriguing glimpses of how Intergraph is approaching this problem.
Peter Batty, the company's chief technology officer, made a presentation on new ways of acquiring data. He talked about the development of technology that allows real time tracking of people and assets, and delivers new cheap environmental sensor arrays. Another innovation will be systems for tracking indoors.
During his own presentation to the conference, Wise talked about the use of video surveillance in crime prevention.
'We need to develop systems that can make sense of input from thousands of cheap video cameras. Cameras with useful resolution are getting cheaper and cheaper, but they are next to useless unless they can be linked to smart monitoring systems', he said.
But all this talk of new technologies brings the need to manage their development into very sharp focus. Today, Intergraph offers a large number of products tailored for many different industries. Developing and maintaining these is obviously a huge drain on resources.
The company believes that one way of making the development of new products easier is to adopt a more modular approach to their construction. Researchers don't need to constantly reinvent the wheel.
'There are many technical and business challenges right now. The development of new technology is one of them. Managing the kinds of new business models being thrown up by the likes of Google and Microsoft is another.
'But I have never been more optimistic about the future. We have been through some pain in the last few years, but I think the company has never been better placed to take up these challenges.'
Jon Fairall interviewed Halsey Wise in Orlando, Florida on 15 June 2006.
