Rajeev - Like all meeting that are product orientated you will likely get what you seek. For myself, I still recall the first Developer Meetings in Troy. They had an intimacy now lost. But then the group was only 100 or so, MapInfo still resided at the maze in downtown Troy and the gross MapInfo sales were only an "amazing" $7 million versus the $80+ millions of their current sales pace. The folks in Troy need a get-away too. Marco Island is a sleepy community about an hours south of Tampa(?). The hotel is very comfortable although I have stayed at smaller places to get a better feel of the "island". Its not really an island, more like a sand spit, and the town is not much. But I have met some really interesting characters there. The area is growing so each year the sleepy has tended to show up increasingly as "morning after" effects. If you do the smaller hotel route you'll need a car. This year I believe will be a very pivotal one for anyone investing into the MapInfo future. I believe it will be a defining for our collective future. If wishes were fishes: I look forward to better understanding the emerging OCXization of Professional and the MapX effort. I "work" via the internet and I have seen huge effort and resources poured into MapInfo's internetization of spatial information. I, too have worried about this apparent shift from the desktop. (But you never really know what has been in the skunk-works.) I am very curious in how MapJ and MapInfo's relationship with Oracle might be used by meer mortals without hundreds of concurrent users. We have our client base (agriculture) steadily moving towards small 100MB LANs attached to 20+GB spatial data sets growing at 40 percent per year. We once thought we were GISers but now we have found we are data-miners with OCX tools. I believe that collectively the Oracle/MapInfo connection is very, very important for us. We, the MapInfo developers, actually have a very important edge on the ESRI camp in this regard. My understanding is on the WINTEL desktop MapInfo is a very major player and rivals ESRI seat for seat. The webization of the desktop, MapInfo's investment in Internet technology, and Oracle's 8i creates a synergy of opportunity. Our apps will (should) just work better.... Oracle dominates the world's Internetization of massive data. And for the life of me, other than Andy's response, MapInfo just can not get this message out. I hope I can find illumination at Marco! I fear that MapInfo may not be able to respond to the needs of the desktop that now can support gigabytes of data. ESRI has been pushed back on the Oracle size data depository (for the moment) as SDE is required to connect to 8i. In theory, MapInfo Professionals only need 8i Personal ($400) and Spatial Cartridge ($360). It works but neither Oracle nor MapInfo endorse it - they will not confirm its for sale. What I am interested in is MapInfo's response to ESRI's SDE-lite. This is a Spatialware-like extended SQL index/engine for Microsoft's Access database via extensions to the JET engine. It is essentially free for AkeInfo 8.0 efforts. In the past there have typically been several hundred of the 1000 over MapInfo developers there. These are professional spatial technologists with extremely high skill levels; they do share insights. A large fraction are from IT groups that do GIS development for internal corporate needs. The community is certainly world class with a widening community of the international MapInfo'ers. I hope to meet you. And the chance to directly network with MapInfo Staff and leadership is there. These women and men of MapInfo make a very sincere effort to give their time to go head-to-head with you. The opportunity to network is only limited by your shyness. Yes, I believe the effort and investment to attend the Developers Meeting in November can well be worth its time and place issues. You may be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement if the insight is really juicy. Red Hen Systems neil (aka MidNight Mapper) Rajeev saraf wrote: > Hi Guys,We are a VAR for mapinfo range of products here. I was > seriuosly considering going for the mapinfo user conference in > florida. However, before i make this huge investment ( it costs a lot > to come from india and there are other costs as well), I would like to > consider the benefits mainly from business perspective. I was hoping > that people who have attended this event may be able to throw some > light on this aspect.Is it a place where you can business > associates?Can substantial dialogues can be exchanges at these > places?Are decision makers from the companies present as > representatives? Overall, will it help my business in selling our > services? I would really appreciate some feedback.--Bye--Rajeev > SarafLepton SoftwareNew Delhi, India ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put "unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
