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Geospatial World 2002... Monday June 10
Where: Renaissance Waverly Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia
When: June 9 - 12
On Monday, June 10, in Atlanta, GA, the second annual GeoSpatial World kicked off with a
welcome address delivered by Preetha Pulusani, President, Intergraph Mapping & GIS
Solutions, and Intergraph CEO Jim Taylor. Pulusani, a 20+ year Intergraph veteran is
responsible for the global strategic direction of the decision and overall business
development.
In her address to the audience, Pulusani set the tone for the week by offering up a review
since the 2001 UC and offered up a look at the company’s vision as well us it’s
perception of current industry trends. The tone for day #1 was quite upbeat, and rightfully
so when you consider some of the announcements that Intergraph executives gladly share
with conference attendees:
the GIS division exceeded profit expectations in 2001
the first quarter of 2002 has also been profitable
IntelliWhere has just release OnDemand (field mapping solution)
GeoMedia, now 5 years old was just released in it’s 5th version
GeoMedia WebMap and WebMap Pro updates will come this summer
… oh yeah, the company has $300 million in the bank thanks to successful
litigation against Intel, and may be looking at an additional $250 million in the
near future if all goes well with a similar Texas-based litigation.
Intergraph CEO, Jim Taylor, took the stage for a short time and reaffirmed my optimism
for the GIS division’s continued success by providing a review of the company’s history
(dating back to 1969) . Always of interest, were historical accounts of old contract with
NASA and Intergraph’s first mapping contract with the City of Nashville. Actually, that
first contract resulted in the loss of a couple of hundred thousand dollars, however, you
can see what it finally led to! Taylor seemed quite content with the company’s current
direction - after all, the 5 vertical business units were all profitable last year - and
reaffirmed how glad he is to be out of the hardware business. He compared selling
hardware to trading a commodity… something that even IBM doesn’t want to do any
longer! Taylor’s “New Intergraph” is best described in a nutshell as:
Profitable business units
Focused
Strong market leadership
A stronger Intergraph
FYI, Intergraph Corp. also owns 30% of Bentley Systems as well as 30% of 3D Labs.
So, what’s the current state of the GIS Community according to Intergraph IMGS?
Pulusani made this quite clear:
data is the most valuable asset
many data formats are commonly used
ownership is often unclear
making data available is a challenge
metadata is critical
data and application interoperability are critical
the OGC is a catalyst for information sharing.
This should give you some idea about Intergraph’s focus!
Finally, regarding Intergraph’s business philosophy, I definitely get a feeling that
business partnerships play a critical role in the company’s success. Pulusani referred to a
number of partners in her welcome address (as did others is their sessions) and I felt this
gracious and visible mention confirmed how important these partners are to the company.
Business partners include Oracle, HP/Compaq, IBM, Microsoft, Hansen, Keigan
Systems, Paragon Imaging, and MapText Inc. For more information about business
partners visit www.teamgeomedia.com
Also from the Floor
Michael Baker of IntelliWhere gave a very informative and humorous presentation of
OnDemand - perhaps best described as Intergraph’s solution to ArcPad! Mike showed
how easy it is to load a large SHP coverage on his PDA, collected data from the field (so
to speak), populated attributes, redlined, then connected OnDemand to his GeoMedia
session “back in the office”. Some “cool stuff” about OnDemand at first glance:
one toolbar (results in a clean display with lots of available real estate)
symbology is carried over
has its own API
simple to relate images and voice (WAV) files to data elements
redlining (with attributes)
not device dependant
Stay tuned for more from GeoSpatial World 2002 including a look at GeoMedia 5, GeoMedia WebMap and WebMap Pro, & OnDemand! PS... I still haven't found the "Nirvana woman" [you know, from the GeoMEdia 5.0 ad] but I'll be sure to keep on searching!
If you have news, announcements, or comments from the event, please be sure to tell us about it.
Send details to Glenn (editor@geocomm.com)
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