See my latest blogpost, and correct me on OGC if I missed it.

RE “It’s going to be interesting to see if he can reshape the discussion when competing with an entity that cares even *less* about the bottom line than ESRI.”

Yes it will be VERY interesting. But don’t think that Google cares less about the bottom line. Google cares it is just that their bottom line is funded through other revenue streams and mapping is just one more way they can generate revenue – it is just not using the mapping technology itself. And that is why it is so disruptive to those with a more traditional business model.

ESRI is not about making money on advertising or trying to index everything around us; their business model is selling software and the maintenance plan associated with that software.

RE: “As to how relevant all this is to most folks in their day-to-day GIS activities…well, not so much.”

I think it is more relevant that we may realize right now. I feel the changes taking place now are laying the foundation for some very interesting changes that will affect our day-to-day GIS activities.

“we” will all need to work very hard to bring Autodesk and Intergraph and Dassault and Google and theremotesensingcommunity and survey companies and architects and…and, and, and — the rest of the ‘community’ — to the table on this. I think that will take a decade.

But maybe some of the people that matter to ESRI will be thinking about this along the way, and from ESRI’s perspective, that’s a good thing.

@James — I don’t think it is as much an issue of the glass being half full or half empty, but rather being able to design a glass that will hold whatever you pour in it. That glass = GeoDesign….

Glass half full or glass half empty here guys…

The geodesign schtick is, definitively, an exercise in tilting at windmills while we move across the landscape. But it’s that very *conversation* that Jack’s trying to start. The presence of the dialog becomes validation for the process, and as the process evolves, it validates the requirements, and so on…all very academic.

ESRI is a huge force in the GIS/CAE/CAD/planning business-ecosystem. This process gets the people in these trades talking about your product in a new way. Again – this is redefining the conversation. And that is something that ESRI needs very much to do.