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Take for example ESRI’s new line 9.2. It is possible to run your toolboxes in ArcSDE on the server, with your data on it as well. So no more network overloads for large raster analysis or large conversion projects. Where is the opensource GIS answer for this?
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NX?

Server: GNU/Linux + FOSS GIS tools + NX + GIS data.

I login from my desktop machine (either Windows or GNU/Linux) onto the serwer. Do my job with QGIS, GRASS, GDAL and friends on the server – no extra network traffic. In the end I output the result (GIS data, images, maps etc.) into a Samba share on the server, so that I other staff members can read them from our desktop machines.

With NX, I can even do all that from home.

Not too bad?

Without a doubt, Manifold has the BEST GUI in the business.

I have to comment on this one. I’ve made a living developing GIS solutions for the last 5 years and the majority have been open source based projects. Truth is customers don’t care HOW you implement the solution.. they just want results.

And, in my experience, open source delivers in many areas proprietary software can’t and vice-versa. It’s about using the best tool for the job, not about blind loyalty to a single vendor. Most people would never considering hiring anyone who had only a single tool at their disposal.

Let’s see….

“I was just thinking that there hadn’t been a Manifold using telling us how great their low end GIS is in this thread yet and now we have it.”

…Talk about missing the obvious!

First, the writer seems not to realize that a few years ago no one talked about Manifold, no one knew what it was, yet now despite no advertising by the company, no attendence at trade shows and nothing but word of mouth from Manifold users, well, Manifold has somehow emerged as a phenomenon the writer expects to be mentioned even in an ESRI forum. And by users no less.

Second, the writer appears to have zero awareness of what Manifold is, given the utter inanity of the “low end” comment.

Something that Oracle has just selected to replace ESRI, that already far outsells ESRI on desktops worldwide, that is used for IMS installations about 100 to 1 over ESRI, that includes 64-bit native capability and multicore/multiprocessor capability (when ESRI has neither 64-bit nor multiprocessing ability), that has far more sophisticated topological processing than ESRI, that delivers the world’s best spatial SQL and that can run thousands of simultaneous users reading/writing/editing a multi-terabyte drawing in an Oracle Spatial enterprise is hardly “low end.”

This is easy for any reasonably intelligent person to determine for themselves by visiting the Manifold user manual at:

http://www.manifold.net/doc/7x/manifold.htm

The astute reader will immediately see from the manual that Manifold delivers far more in a single package than ESRI delivers in ArcGIS + ArcSDE + ArcIMS + ArcObjects + yet more miscellaneous dinosaur-ware. Manifold 7x is the world’s most complete, most sophisticated GIS ever, by a rather wide margin.

Further, disrepect for Manifold is disrespect for the Manifold user community that has financed the development of the program and has guided its evolution. All that the development team at manifold.net has done is follow the wishes of GIS users worldwide for what they want. With over 1000 improvements per year during the last few years the relentless implementation of user wishlist items has resulted in something that is highly responsive to user demands. And sophisticated users want far more than what ESRI has been capable of providing.

Many sophisticated users have become fed up with waiting for ESRI to implement the obvious and have taken their many years of GIS expertise into Manifold. The product is a reflection of that accumulated expertise, and the financial power of the company rests entirely upon their happiness. Without word of mouth support over many years, without support earned only by delivering what users demand, Manifold would not have been able to produce a steady stream of groundbreaking new releases with better engineering and much more sophisticated algorithms than ESRI.

Combine that with the extraordinary financial bonanza of tapping mainstream computer markets and the millions of users they confer and… well, the result tends to eradicate small volume, high price, old-fashioned, poorly-managed and technically inept players like ESRI.

And technically inept it is. For those of us who are aware of modern progress in software the sheer ineptness of ESRI software is striking. Setting aside obvious and flashy matters like near-zero leveraging of .NET, 64-bits and multiprocessing, there is virtually no detail of ESRI software that is not strikingly doltish and old fashioned.

To take just one example, there is the appallingly backward nature of scripting in AML or Avenue that has only recently been replaced by the utterly dork circus of scripting in VBA. Real men don’t do that. They do as Manifold does, which allows users to script in whatever ActiveX language they like (VBscript, Javascript, PERL, Python, Ruby, etc.) or whatever .NET language they like (VB.NET, C#, whatever) or both. And Manifold even does syntax coloring for the various languages. Of course you don’t have to do scripting or programming in Manifold, but those who do program want to have a professional, quality development environment and not this low end VBA guff. It is just one of thousands of revealing details.

Manifold Release 7x is the best there is. There is no finer GIS at any price and nothing, at any price, from ESRI comes even close. That for $395 Manifold’s Enterprise Edition does more than a $30,000 bundle of ESRI dinosaur-ware (ArcGIS, ArcSDE, ArcIMS, Arc Objects and a bunch of other “Arc”haic dolt-ware packages) is just the icing on the cake. The real merit to Manifold is that life is too short to waste on stupid, obsolete software, whether it is expensive or whether it benefits from mainstream economy of scale.

Doubt that? Visit the Manifold user community at http://forum.manifold.net and see what the unmoderated user community has to say.

The deal with Manifold is simple: extraordinarily complete and sophisticated software implemented using modern software technology at a level that makes ESRI stuff look like primitive junk and sold at one fortieth of the price. That’s a very simple concept that experienced GIS users find very appealing.

As for the “manifold marketing department,” well, there isn’t any. I work for Manifold and there is no one there who pays any attention to marketing, except for the limited sense of product marketing, that is making sure user demands are represented within the engineering program. It is all engineering, hence the relentless progress of the software.

Since this is an ESRI blog it seems inappropriate to continue a Manifold thread, nor is it likely I’ll ever find this URL again. If anyone would like to continue the discussion (flames, etc.), please feel free to contribute on the Manifold forum at http://forum.manifold.net. Or, if you prefer, do not hesitate to flame me directly at dar@manifold.net.

Best regards to all,

Dimitri

I’ve heard from some users that they looked at the on-line manual and that hepled in their decision to buy it, here’s the link:
http://www.manifold.net/doc/700/manifold.htm