New Case Study on Microsoft Azure and ESRI

June 30, 2010 5 Comments

It looks like Microsoft has posted a new case study that focuses on the Azure platform and ESRI.

By making the MapIt service available with Windows Azure, ESRI has made it easier for organizations to adopt GIS technology. The underlying technology is easy to work with and familiar, because it uses traditional Microsoft products. Customers spend less time deploying a solution and more time reaping the benefits, without the need to become a GIS expert.

Customers can deploy the MapIt service in Windows Azure without having to configure and deploy new hardware and install software packages, which can take weeks or months and cost tens of thousands of dollars—not to mention the ongoing costs associated with IT maintenance, power, and data storage. “By freeing customers from having to make large hardware, software, and staffing investments up front, we’re helping lower the cost of GIS entry and increase the return on investment,” says Haddad.

Or in simple terms, “You don’t need ArcGIS Server and tons of IT admins to have geospatial applications on the web”.

Let us have Simon & Garfunkel take sing us out — Cloudy!

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ESRI’s MapIt vs MapDotNet vs IDV Solutions

July 20, 2009 21 Comments

A couple people asked me at the ESRI UC what I thought about the ESRI MapIt announcement and how it related to MapDotNet and IDV Solutions products.   Both MapDotNet and IDV Solutions have great products and really impressive support teams so don’t expect either to just disappear anytime soon (if at all).  One thing is for sure though, MapIt is like no other ESRI product before it on how it is sold, supported and how agile the development team is.  I suspect we’ll be seeing more ESRI MapIt type products from ESRI (smaller more nimble development teams like ArcGIS Explorer and the API teams) in the coming year.

From a user standpoint, Microsoft seems to favor ESRI’s product (though one could say they were at the ESRI UC so we’ll have to see how Microsoft plays MapIt moving forward).  Enterprise customers seem to prefer ESRI, but MapIt isn’t aimed at them (I can’t tell you how many times I heard ESRI say that I didn’t need MapIt because I already had everything I needed; ArcGIS Server).  Thus this is a play for the market outside their traditional space and one that is possibly very disruptive if they can pull it off.  At the very least, MapDotNet says bring it on!

So we are starting to see the Microsoft stack get very spatial.

SQL Server 2008 Spatial + SharePoint + Silverlight = GIS

The only thing this can result in is better development tools for programmers and thus better tools for users.

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Download ESRI MapIt

July 13, 2009 11 Comments

Now that MapIt has been released, you can now learn more and download it.

MapIt is software and online services that enable you to create simple maps from your enterprise data. MapIt software transforms your data into meaningful information displayed on maps while providing access to a wealth of online data, basemaps, and task services from ESRI and Bing Maps. MapIt is built on the Microsoft platform, enabling organizations to leverage their developers’ skills and IT infrastructure.

We’ll probably learn much more over the next week about MapIt and how it fits in with the ESRI product line.  You buy it directly from ESRI and not through resellers or the normal ESRI sales lines.  Remember, this is a Microsoft only solution so if you want to work with products outside their “stack“, you’ll want to look elsewhere.

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Implications of ESRI MapIt

July 1, 2009 11 Comments

So ESRI has a new product arriving:

Another major/joint effort involves the development of a new ESRI product called MapIt. This technology provides simple geocoding and mapping capability for the Microsoft environment. MapIt enables developers to create maps of their enterprise data stored SQL Server 2008 and Excel. MapIt is designed to give non-GIS organizations the ability to easily create maps and share them within a variety of Microsoft environments like SharePoint. Details will be announced in July.

There were rumors of such a product coming out at the DevSummit, but nothing came of it.  This appears to be the continuation of the Silverlight/WPF product that ESRI has been working on.  What is interesting here is it would appear not to be using ESRI Servers (ArcGIS Server/ArcSDE) and direct connecting to SQL Server then visualizing on Bing Maps.  It would appear that you can develop using ESRI’s APIs, but not deal with ArcObjects.  As an ESRI developer though, I’m wondering if this could be my new MapObjects?

No word on pricing and licensing, but I’m going to be paying close attention to MapIt in two weeks.

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