Steve -
"....watch as we pay more money for functions that are often
included in the base package and price of other GIS's"
I think you may have squealed before you have been bitten. I don't have a
problem in paying reasonable update/support fees. I will agree resonable is a
debateable word. There is some likleyhood that we will all squeal a bit more
- I hope in joy!
This list and others like them are great but we still need major efforts
(economies of scale) to maintain our collective intellectual leverage. Both
MapInfo and ESRI's adoption of the obvious COM model will create stress in
both of our camps. ESRI more so as they too have been assimilated by the
Borg and have bit the Microsoft VB apple. Their objects are replaceable too.
If I were one of the stunned-SUN / ESRI developers, I would be wondering just
what VBA means to my future. Likewise is our MapBasic investment valuable?
Yes. Should we consider MapJ? Your bet!
I don't know much about the "Pro" series other than I beleive one is free,
ProViewer, and the other, ProReport, is for sale. Viewer allows our work
product users to see MapInfo Pro data without ownership of a Pro or RT
license. ProReport, I have never seen, and I believe it embellishes the
cartography of a layout. That too sounds valuable.
Will the ProDraw tool appear as an entry level tool for layer creation?
ProLabel? I'll let you guess that one. The one piece I really speculate on
is ProBuild. Is it a cleaning utility for ProDraw or a Macro language?
Might they be accessed by MapJ? Can you ask a SQL statement in ProView? One
free and one for cost "Pro" does not set integrated value.
On another topic, I believe you to worry over large insurance record sets?.
What is your opinion of the apparent advantage gained in the 5.5 upgrade that
linked our community to the dominate spatial database, Oracle's 8i? Don't we
now have a SQL and Java opportunity to have access to 8i's "industrtial
strenght idexization" of spatial objects, video segements, images, audio
tracks, and text via a state-of-the-art database engine?
Our 8i Personal Edition cost us a whoppin $395 plus $150 for a year's worth
of support and updating. And you can get it for NT, Linux, or SUN. We are
about to learn about how Spatialware integrates to the Spatial Cartridge and
the Oracle 8i data engine. And we did this with a small investment.
Thoughts?
MidNight Mapper
aka Neil
9/19/99
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