Mushrooms to

							Mushrooms to
Microsoft

The Evolution of Geomatics

BOB RYERSON

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