Ed Katibah is blogging
February 29, 2008 8 Comments
Ed Katibah, who has a long history with IBM and Informix and is now the spatial project manager for Microsoft’s SQL Server, is blogging.
zigGIS 2.0 – View Edit PostGIS and SQL Server 2008 from ArcGIS Desktop
January 7, 2008 8 Comments
Abe Gillespie has the great news on his blog, zigGIS 2.0 is officially announced.
Obtuse Software is proud to announce the upcoming release of zigGIS 2.0. For over two years zigGIS has enabled ArcView to view and analyze PostGIS layers. New to version 2.0 is the ability to edit PostGIS data as well as support for Microsoft SQL Server 2008.
Now all you folks who were unhappy that ESRI is charging for SQL Server 2008 access, now have an alternative avenue to view/edit SQL Server 2008 data. The questions I had seem to have been answered:
Obtuse Software releases zigGIS 2.0 sometime 2008 Q1. There is still much to be done so expect it later than sooner. Corporate licenses sell for $279 per seat. Personal and educational licenses are free. The source code will remain open.
So there you have it. View/edit both PostGIS and SQL Server 2008 right from ArcMap.
Microsoft turns the world right side up again
December 27, 2007 12 Comments
Thanks to Paul Ramsey, Bill Dollins, Morten Nielsen and others, Microsoft has said that they plan to implement longitude-latitude ordering in WKB and WKT for both the geography and geometry types. Bill put it best IMO as to why this change needed to happen with SQL Server 2008.
For me, the issue is consistency. Regardless of the mindsets of professionals vs. non-professionals or the imprecision of the OGC spec, the bottom line is that the same call behaves differently for two related data types.
Now sure it would have been possible to work around this, but it makes no sense for Microsoft to do things different from everyone else. Now I still see Microsoft using the GML example of axis order to justify their choice, but given that the standard is long/lat I can’t understand why they’d want to be different.
Now you know why folks such as Howard Butler were “unhappy” that Google named their blog Google LatLong rather than the more correct Google LongLat.
Man, this place looks expensive. I feel like I’m wasting a fortune just standing here.
ESRI to Support SQL Server 2008 Spatial
December 6, 2007 58 Comments
Good news for those who want to take advantage of SQL Server 2008 Spatial and ArcGIS.
ESRI’s ArcGIS 9.3 software, the next scheduled release of ESRI’s ArcGIS suite, will take full advantage of the new spatial technology in the upcoming release of SQL Server 2008. With the November SQL Server 2008 community technology preview (CTP), Microsoft Corporation is extending the use and value of spatial technology by integrating it directly within SQL Server at no additional cost.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Spatial will be supported on free Express versions
November 20, 2007 45 Comments
I just got this tidbit of information from a friend who talked to Ed Katibah (lead Program Manager for SQL Spatial).
Spatial datatype, methods and indexes will be supported equally on all SQL Server editions (Express, Workgroup, Standard and Enterprise) at no extra charge. That means anyone who wants to use the SQL Server 2008 Spatial can download the free Express version and start working with spatial databases. Express will still have its limitations as it does now but you have to believe that this puts a huge damper on middleware producers that are targeting .NET developers (ArcSDE *cough*).
Just think, download SQL Server 2008 Express and perform geospatial operations in Virtual Earth or OpenLayers.
SQL Server Mechagodzilla pushes other Spatial Databases aside with ease
MapDotNet Support for SQL Server 2008 Spatial
November 12, 2007 5 Comments
I’m sure many of us on the MapDotNet email list got the news that full support for SQL Server 2008 Spatial is right around the corner.
MapDotNet Server 6.5 is currently undergoing beta testing and will be released in November 2007. In addition to support for SQL Server 2008, it will provide support for the new features in Microsoft Virtual Earth 6.0, and will include upgraded map rendering capabilities, support for Windows Communication Foundation, profiling, event logging, and improved diagnostics.
Was there some sort of planned “event” for SQL Server 2008 today because both Manifold and Safe Software also announced SQL Server 2008 Spatial support.
