2011 - Geoinformatics

GeoInformatics is the leading publication for Geospatial
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Some remarks on this year’s
Intergeo trade fair
Having returned from this year’s Intergeo trade show, a number of things caught my
eye. First of all, the number of acquisitions in the industry which resulted in large
booths on the exhibition floor of big companies with smaller, local parties that are
owned by the big guys. But that does not mean there are no small, interesting companies
that do stuff that is promising for the future. On the contrary, my interest
always goes out to the OSGeo Park, where a number of small booths are combined
with open source projects. Every year I see new initiatives happening that are shared
with the audience. That these initiatives are no longer something that is happening
on the margins of the industry, is proven by the interest shown in them by the big
guys, or a major event such as FOSS4G.
Mobile mapping is a technology that seems to have reached its peak and is now
being replaced by a new trend, namely UAV’s. In this issue there are some contributions
on this topic that have gained a lot of attention in both the academic world
and the industry itself. While still an interesting and relevant topic, I noticed less
attention to mobile mapping systems on the exhibition floor than at last year’s
Intergeo.
The presence by Google at the exhibition was to be expected, since their Google
Earth Builder cloud platform is meant for organizations who want to upload their
data into the cloud. It will be interesting to follow where exactly this will take Google
in the geospatial market, since their services and infrastructure are meant as an
add-on to an already existing GIS infrastructure. But nonetheless, it’s a move that
could prove to be interesting, although Google is known for trying out many things
and not always succeeding in the long run.
Coming back to my first point about acquisitions, I noticed a trend where the whole
cycle of data capture up to the final end product is now being handled by a number
of companies operating under the same umbrella or mother company (exceptions
aside, such as Esri). Hardware and software are being integrated and different
‘flavors’ are available for different applications, in the case of Z/I Imaging and
Leica Geosystems.
All in all, this year’s Intergeo once again was a good indication of how the industry
is doing. For those of you who weren’t there to witness it, there’s a review of the
event in this issue, as well as a series of specialized contributions that show that the
industry as a whole is moving forward at a fast pace.
Enjoy your reading,
Eric van Rees
evanrees@geoinformatics.com
Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com October/November 2011
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