It seems to me that part of the problem with the perceptions of
MapInfo are due to what I would consider very poor marketing decisions. To
me at least, it seems that MapInfo has left the government market to ESRI.
Many states are establishing standards for GIS data and work. The state
decisions on standards are likely to be heavily influencied by senior
people in planning and public works departments who have a relatively high
probability of having grown up on ESRI products that were around earlier
than MI. The state decisions will then affect local government decisions
and eventually also influence decisions in private industry so that they
can use government information and interact with government entitites. The
worst example of ignoring government with which I am familiar is in the
field of criminal justice. There are far more police departments who need
to know where crimes occur, probation and parole departments who need to
know where their clients are, corrections departments who need to know from
where and to where prisoners come and go, state county and city attorneys
who need to know where warrants need to be served, protection and probation
orders monitored than there are Fortune 500, Fortune 1000, Top 5000, or
Top10000 corporations.
Even though MI will cost less than any ESRI product to put into
operation, and this is a critical issue for government agencies, MI skilled
people and MI products are not even getting a hearing. It's unbelieveable
how slow and expensive it is to get even an ArcView operation running
compared to MI, but if they don't market, it's their own foot that they'll
be perforating. MI was so superior to the first version of ArcView, that
it was unbelievable. MI developed a great crime analysis system for the
LA cops, but didn't support or develop it extensively for other PDs. MI
even has ignored little ditsy stuff that would enhance their market like
providing cutsy little symbols that could be used for different types of
crimes. On criminal justice listserves, gis crime analysts are always
asking about different types of symbols like different shapes of cars or
guns to use to indicate the locations of different types of crimes.
ArcView made a whole pile of these avaiable and MI just sat on it hands as
far as I can tell. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'd like to use any cutsy
symbols that are available too. In the university market, MI made a little
step forward by linking with SPSS, but hasn't gotten anywhere near
providing the statistical capability that can be linked to ESRI products
particularly for spatial analyses problems.
The failure to market to the government sector effectively is, in my
opinion, what leads to denigration of MI. As far as I can tell, and maybe
I'm wrong,
the quality of what happens with the mapping software is heavily dependent
on the quality of the map. Use a crummy map and you won't be able to do
much with it. Inherently, and correct me if I'm wrong, so I can humble
myself before ESRI types if necessary, that there aren't any inherent
reasons one couldn't
use land parcel files with MapInfo or make engineering quality drawings.
If there is something wrong with MI algorithms that affects its
reliablility in handling precision maps, I guess I'd like to know so that I
don't get upbraided by the ESRI devotees. Sorry, I guess that was more
than my 2 cents worth, but I sure wish MI would wake up before more states
try and cut them out of the picture.
Denn Roncek
v. 402.554.2610
e [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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