Daratech Predicts Changes Ahead for GIS, Geospatial Arenas

3 Apr, 2005

Daratech has studied and written about the GIS (geographic information systems) market for 15 years and is expanding its coverage to include geospatial markets in 2005, it reports. The research group defines GIS as a computerized database management system for spatial, or locationally defined, data. Geospatial technologies assist in the interpretation of this data in its entire context for better decision-making. Daratech announced last week that it believes the following issues are the most important confronting the GIS and geospatial markets in 2005. For the full announcement, go to http://www.daratech.com.

Too much data, not enough standardization. Daratech has written about this problem for years, and there are no signs of abatement, it reports.

The Web changes everything. Governments, utilities, communications companies and other enterprises are looking for ways to interact with customers, employees and partners via the Internet. The issues in serving information on such a wide basis are enormous.

Homeland security initiatives are changing buying patterns and priorities. Many advances in technology are being made in an effort to upgrade the technology used by public safety agencies to plan for and execute in case of emergency.

Return on investment matters. Daratech covers other technology areas in which a calculated ROI has been a critical factor in technology selection. ROI is very much a concern of for-profit enterprises and is starting to take hold in geospatial and GIS, too.

Information management is the key to success. The next big battle in the geospatial and GIS technology realm will be fought over how well spatial information and related metadata are managed.