Update: ArcGIS Online Service Credits Might Not Be A Good Deal
Update
OK so we were off just a bit on pricing. Clearly ArcGIS Online can be expensive, but that can be said the same of any cloud service. There are situations where the cloud makes sense and where you are nuts for thinking of using it. For now the price of ArcGIS Online is low enough to get started (especially with the free 30 days) that if you’ve been waiting for such a service, you should give it a shot. Otherwise, just stand up your ArcGIS Server in rackspace and be done with it.
Also this might not be a bad time to mention I’m giving a Lighning Talk at the Esri UC on just this subject, where the Cloud makes sense to users. Heh, I totally didn’t even plan that!
Yesterday I asked what did a service credit get you with ArcGIS Online. To me the pricing seemed aggressive, but given that service credits could mean whatever Esri wants them to be, I figured the devil is in the detail. Don Barker signed up and then figured out what a service credit gets you. Go to his blog post for all the detail, but I’ll just pull this out here:
Tile generation — 1 [service] credit per 1000 tiles generated
I can’t imagine that is right. As Brian Flood points out here, that’s just a simple ordinary tile cache. If that pricing is correct, I now see what all the complaining was about, these service credits don’t get you very much and AGO ends up being expensive, quickly. Hopefully Esri will address this with more detail and we can see what you actually get for a service credit.
You Really Blew It
Wait, service credits aren’t a deal?
Arcgis Online Pricing Released, What is A Service Credit
ArcGIS Online has been one of the more confusing products to come out of Esri that I can recall (well besides ArcGIS Publisher). No one could really figure out what Esri wanted it to be and then it sort of went dark since late last year. In the meantime, we’ve heard rumblings about the pricing being out of wack with expectations and many smaller government users have basically told me they thought it was very unreasonable. But for most of us, we had no idea what it was going look like or cost. But now we’ve got pricing.
ArcGIS Online Pricing
To me, that doesn’t look bad at all. In fact, I’m almost wondering if Esri is doing this at a loss given what ArcGIS Server costs. Now I do get that there is some uncertainty here with what exactly you are getting with these Service Credits. A good friend of mine compared them to “Disney Dollars” where their value can of course be changed at any time. Right now they are 1:1 to the U.S. Dollar but you still don’t really have much idea what that means. As will all Esri pricing, anything is negotiable so call your local rep and deal with them.
But that doesn’t really explain what a Service Credit is and what you get for it. Does anyone have a clue? Some say it is one action of storing data in ArcGIS.com:
https://twitter.com/GeoBrando/status/213355762100088832
If that’s the case, this is a steal and you all need to be more realistic with your pricing expectations. I am quite impressed with how aggressive it is. Clearly, Esri is serious about ArcGIS Online. Meanwhile, Google continues to do nothing with Google Earth Maps Builder. I guess we’ll hear more about it at Google I/O, but whatever lead they had over Esri, that’s evaporated.
Esri Dollar
Arcgis Online Pricing Released, What is A Service Credit
ArcGIS Online has been one of the more confusing products to come out of Esri that I can recall (well besides ArcGIS Publisher). No one could really figure out what Esri wanted it to be and then it sort of went dark since late last year. In the meantime, we’ve heard rumblings about the pricing being out of wack with expectations and many smaller government users have basically told me they thought it was very unreasonable. But for most of us, we had no idea what it was going look like or cost. But now we’ve got pricing.
ArcGIS Online Pricing
To me, that doesn’t look bad at all. In fact, I’m almost wondering if Esri is doing this at a loss given what ArcGIS Server costs. Now I do get that there is some uncertainty here with what exactly you are getting with these Service Credits. A good friend of mine compared them to “Disney Dollars” where their value can of course be changed at any time. Right now they are 1:1 to the U.S. Dollar but you still don’t really have much idea what that means. As will all Esri pricing, anything is negotiable so call your local rep and deal with them.
But that doesn’t really explain what a Service Credit is and what you get for it. Does anyone have a clue? Some say it is one action of storing data in ArcGIS.com:
https://twitter.com/GeoBrando/status/213355762100088832
If that’s the case, this is a steal and you all need to be more realistic with your pricing expectations. I am quite impressed with how aggressive it is. Clearly, Esri is serious about ArcGIS Online. Meanwhile, Google continues to do nothing with Google Earth Maps Builder. I guess we’ll hear more about it at Google I/O, but whatever lead they had over Esri, that’s evaporated.
Esri Dollar
Will Apple Maps Impact Web Mapping?
Forbes talks about how Apple dumping Google Maps might hit Google’s revenue, but most of us don’t really worry about how much billions Apple and Google make. Maybe Google is a little unsure, but what about us?
First off, I suspect this mapping API from Apple will be free to developers on iOS devices. So while that might be a large segment of the mobile market, most of us don’t develop exclusively on iOS. Thus in the short term, it becomes one more API we must learn if we are deploying to Apple devices. Maybe Apple will extended it to OS X (possibly eventually the web), but for now I suspect this this will iOS only as Apple is really only concerned if you use their hardware. So you might decide to migrate your Google or Mapbox tiles to Apple on iOS, but you’ll still need to use Google or Mapbox on other platforms.
Second, it might not be useful for GIS applications. Putting any pushpin on a map is easy, but overlaying lines and polygons on top of what might be a beautiful map but noisy, means that users might not be able to see what you are showing them. I’ve always like whitelabel maps that basically give you just enough to navigate, but don’t show you features that aren’t relevant to your product. Apple may get there one day, but I’m going to guess their map they show this week will be beautiful and difficult for us to work with.
Third, if you are already using Google or Mapbox, do you really need to switch? No if things are working well for you. Change for the sake of change is never good. There is no shortage of map tiling options for developers on mobile devices and the Apple one might not be good for us. I guess we’ll know soon.
Chin Music
A little chin music now and then keeps us all honest
Will Apple Maps Impact Web Mapping?
Forbes talks about how Apple dumping Google Maps might hit Google’s revenue, but most of us don’t really worry about how much billions Apple and Google make. Maybe Google is a little unsure, but what about us?
First off, I suspect this mapping API from Apple will be free to developers on iOS devices. So while that might be a large segment of the mobile market, most of us don’t develop exclusively on iOS. Thus in the short term, it becomes one more API we must learn if we are deploying to Apple devices. Maybe Apple will extended it to OS X (possibly eventually the web), but for now I suspect this this will iOS only as Apple is really only concerned if you use their hardware. So you might decide to migrate your Google or Mapbox tiles to Apple on iOS, but you’ll still need to use Google or Mapbox on other platforms.
Second, it might not be useful for GIS applications. Putting any pushpin on a map is easy, but overlaying lines and polygons on top of what might be a beautiful map but noisy, means that users might not be able to see what you are showing them. I’ve always like whitelabel maps that basically give you just enough to navigate, but don’t show you features that aren’t relevant to your product. Apple may get there one day, but I’m going to guess their map they show this week will be beautiful and difficult for us to work with.
Third, if you are already using Google or Mapbox, do you really need to switch? No if things are working well for you. Change for the sake of change is never good. There is no shortage of map tiling options for developers on mobile devices and the Apple one might not be good for us. I guess we’ll know soon.
Chin Music
A little chin music now and then keeps us all honest
WWDC Apple Maps Video Posted
Apple has posted the video of the WWDC keynote. If you want to see the new Apple Maps app, just fast forward to about 98 minutes into the talk.