Joe Francica has an interesting peice on Directions exploring his categorisation of the geospatial marketplace, the Geospatial Quadrant. In this categorisation he defines 4 axes, Products, Systems Integration, Solutions and Data Services.
I think there is a flaw in the analysis in that it places Product and Solutions at opposite ends of the spectrum whilst my experience of the major product vendors is that they are very active in promoting and delivering solutions based upon their domain expertise and product stack. Similarly several of the companies that have traditionally offered data services have moved on to delivering solutions that move them towards the Systems Integrator end of the axis. Unlike the Gartner Magic Quadrant, there doesn’t seem to be a square that a company would aspire to occupy.
Here is an alternative. This quadrant looks at the movement from traditional installed software to Software as a Service and the move from geospatial specialist solutions to spatially enabled business solutions. Not sure that this one is any better than Joe’s but it may serve to prompt some discussion (particularly as I have left the squares blank so that you can fill in the dots for the companies as you see fit or you could change the labels).
9 days to the budget and still no leaks ….
