Ian -
You have to be joking! Do it all over again? ESRI's AkeView superior to
MapInfo?
Given your small summary and last (and almost missing) detail on your
uplifting story of ESRI's AkeInfo 8.0 (to be confused with AkeView), that is
its price tag of, what, $51,000 AUD or $27,500 US, I think you have had your
mind ESRI-ized!
Here are a couple of other biased opinions you also need to provide to those
contemplating AkeView:
AkeView's language, Avenue, is in my opinion DOA given ESRI's absorption by
the Microsoft BORG. Their nomination of NT, adoption and special-issue of
VisualAkeBasic is Jack-came too-late COM-ization of the AkeInfo flagship.
The AkeView give-away has essentially stolen the growth from ESRI as its
WINTEL orientation beheaded the AkeInfo money stream. They have to kill
AkeView off lest they have to compete with the Manifolds, BlueMarbles,
IDRISIs, and yes even MapInfo. (Use the old FUD effect!)
And lastly, the unholy GIS trinity of SUN-Oracle-ESRI is gone. SUN sees a
looming Linux slowly creeping up on them via Intel and its clones. Oracle?
Well Oracle has made their choice and that as far as I can tell is MapInfo.
And ESRI, what of ESRI?
ESRI has been absorbed by the BORG - Microsoft. ("LINUX, I don't want no
stink'n LINUX", exclaimed Jack and he and Bill map a common interest.) I
can not imagine how all of the SUN workstation GISers who see the future of
their skill being captured by NT and VisualAkeBasic feel. It must be a
horrible. A slow and painful death as they see the lowly NT and
VisualAkeBasic programmer eating away at their Unix-FUD foundations. Gulp!
Yep, its an easy target to go after NapInfo. You know, that company that
put a GUI on your WINTEL machine long before Jack felt the need ($) to do
Windows. And it was that little-old NapInfo that still can provide to every
EXCEL user who has interest, TAB mapping. And lastly it has been MapInfo
that has changed the competitive landscape on the Internet by going ESRI one
better compliant JAVA, and being a partner of Oracle.
For all you nap-sters who think it may be NapInfo and not MapInfo, get a
life! We saw the writing on the wall along time ago and believe MapX is the
best pathway for investing our limited resources. Our mapping results
remain compatible to Professional and we have an excellent bridge to
scalable GIS tools via the NET. And for those willing to ride out the
ESRI-ite-FUD plant on "our" un-edited list, the next step - MapJ and a CORBA
design? Hmmmm.... gosh, I just don't get it?
FWIW
MidNight Mapper
aka Neil
5/11/00
PS. Don't let these, the "absorborg" ake-lurkers on the MapInfo-l list pipe
you away. You fear the rats and scheme how you'll short change the piper!
The longer term price you may pay is the loss of your children.....
-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Allan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 9:23 AM
To: shepherd stewart; MapInfo-L
Subject: Re: MI Best GIS for dollar
Hi Shepherd
You're going through the same dilemna that many of us must continually go
through. To be honest, if I was starting with GIS from scratch, was doing
GIS
for just myself, had a good budget & wanted a mainstream desktop system that
could deliver the best stuff both both in terms of social & environmental
geography, I would undoubtedly go the esri (arcview) path. It is my belief
that
esri have substantial updates, the most academically sound products, and
also
some of the fastest running code. A big reason for this is Esri's size, and
its
range of products. However, that said, often there is a bigger picture. For
example, although arcview may be a better GIS & includes the Avenue
programming
language, it does not include a code-capturing window. MapInfo has its
mapbasic
window, & being able to cut & paste code from this into a mapbasic program
makes MapInfo one of the most productive programming environments I have
seen.
What "exactly" do you want GIS for? If its simply map making then MapInfo
may
be the way to go. If its "complex" spatial queries then ArcView may be the
way.
You need to be aware that you may need to be compatible with other users, or
potentially may lock them into decisions you make. If you're a programmer &
trying to sell your wares, you'll need to be sure your target market can run
your software. There is also the issue of price & cost of upgrades. You need
also to be aware that some GISs work really well on small datasets but not
on
larger ones. For example, I purchased IDRISIs CartaLynx topology builder
last
year, but in > 4 hours of processing, it could not achieve what PC ArcInfo
could achieve in around 2 minutes.
You mention Manifold. I cannot comment on this yet. Its web page makes it
sound
very impressive but my biggest concern is that it may turn out to be another
CartaLynx performance-wise. I will be evaluating V5.0 when it is released &
intend posting a review on MapInfo-L once I have done this.
Please feel free to email me again if you have any more queries.
Regards,
Ian Allan
For example, I got a quote from esri recently for ArcInfo. At $51K AUD for
the
basic product, this is well out of the range for my small business
shepherd stewart wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I have been reading the threads on MI and ArcView in the same office and
am
> interested in peoples opinions as to value. I am considering purchase of
a
> GIS but would like info on value vs functionality.
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