About the GEOSPATIAL

The geospatial industry gathers all activities, products, services and stakeholders involved in geomatics but increasingly also involved in information technologies (IT), which take advantage of the ubiquitous spatial dimension in data and information (Where).

The definition of the word geomatics is now widely used and quite well defined. But geomatics is mostly known by insiders, people who work with the standard disciplines involved in data acquisition, processing, management and dissemination such as topography, cartography, geodesy, photogrammetry, remote sensing, GIS, and GPS.

« Geomatics is to Geospatial what Medicine is to Health »

Whether it serves corporate or individual interests, the geospatial industry’s products and services reach more and more people. It is now reaching other non tranditional spheres of activities and meet a multitude of corporate and even individual needs.

The geospatial industry’s products and services are becoming more and more integrated and exploited in Information Systems (Customer Relationship Management – CRM, Enterprise Resource Planning – ERP, Business Intelligence – BI, etc.), as well as in many products and services designed for a wider public (GPS, PND for assisted navigation, mobile phones, and location-bases services).

A Fast Moving Industry

It is clear that the geospatial industry is experiencing a fast growth. Even though conventional sectors such as GIS are experiencing a noteworthy organic growth, the « new geospatial economy » is literally exploding in terms of offers and functional applications.

BALIZ observes many changes in the market. BALIZ can easily differentiate the internal changes inherent to the industry and its players from those who benefit the IT sector and the society. Sometimes, the changes converge, sometimes they oppose, and sometimes they diverge.

Here is a a brief enumeration of typical elements of the present era :
- Strengthening and focus of conventional GIS players (Autodesk, Bentley, ESRI, Intergraph as well as Leica’s conglomerate);
- OGC standards’ organisation, dissemination and adoption (GML et WFS, WMS, WCS, etc.);
- Open Source offer’s organisation (OSGeo for GRASS, Mapserver, MapGuide, etc.);
- Focusing of the geospatial industry’s smaller players on integration and specialization, instead of R&D and development;
- Resurgence and promotion of imagery (aerial photos, satellite images).

For Business and Organisations :
- Better support for geometry in databases or DBMS like Orable, DB2, and shortly MS SQL Server;
- Google and Microsoft’s serial acquisitions of conventional players, and acquisition of MapInfo by Pitney Bowes;
- The continuation of the integration and value of « geo » applications in businesses’s systems (BI, CRM, ERP, fleet management, etc.);
- The predicted integration of « geo » applications by the Telecom sector ;

Mass market and Internet users in general :
- Creation and adoption of mass market Web tools;
- Accessibility of GPS and Personal Navigation Devices;
- Web’s awareness to geography (Web’s hyperlocation, local search)