For those of you who know the MidNight Mapper I hope you will not overly
discount my comments in regards to educational use and licensing of MapInfo
technologies.
When MapInfo gets berated because its "not conforming to an ESRI practice"
well shame on us. I hope we are better than they. ESRI will do just about
anything to cause rifts in the competition. They are the king of LOSS LEAD
GIS as Jack owns the outfit. He doesn't need to answer to anyone - except
these days Bill!
>From day one AkeView 1.0 was a free give away. Why? Well companies like
MapInfo were eating its lunch on the desktop. What evolved has been AkeView
2.0 and now as AkeView 3.x with all of its big $$$ plug-ins...
And now again ESRI attacks the entry level user with ArcExploiter 1.0 and
2.0. Great! While we MapInfo'ers look over at the seemingly greener
grasses of "Viewer" and "Exploiter" understand that ESRI's/Jack's real
interest is in their next generation of ArcInfo and its ArcObjects.
And I dare anyone to suggest to this list that SHP is a better format than
MID/MID.
And what is really cruel to their Avenue developers is the ArcView future is
doomed by a Redland's decree. This generation of ESRI technology is based
on ArcInfo 8.0 and all of its associated COM objects. Not on Viewer or
Avenue. It is to be programmed via Visual Basic. Avenue is DOA; it has no
future in the ESRI vision.
So jump ship you fools and swim hard. Priced a ArcInfo or ArcSDE deal
lately? And you thought MapInfo Professional 6.0 was questionable? That
said,
Now for educational use of MapInfo......
Over the years with Farmers Software Association (FSA) has locked horns with
MapInfo attitudes towards education. And we have been successful. Why?
Because we have not made one penny on these educational licenses.
Little FSA has I'll guess over 150 Professional licenses in more than 40
Land Grant Institutions or the "State Universities" like Cornell, Rutgers,
Iowa State, Purdue, U of Illinois, and the like. We have also helped to set
up a number of "student" labs in both universities and community colleges -
I'll guess there are 200+ of these seats out there in small labs of 10 to 30
PCs. Mostly to support site specific farming systems in the Colleges of
Agriculture.
The MapInfo scholastic deal requires that the school be willing to pay only
20 percent of list for the license. On $1495 that makes a seat worth $299 -
not "free" but a good deal. The "Labs" cost a bit more but can be put
together.
How do you do it? First you scream and holler, hold your breath and kick
the MapInfo marketers in the shins. Not just once but numerous times over
the years. You'll have to promise you'll take care of the academics on your
own dime. Your serious right?
Then you'll need a letter from the individual or department on letterhead
asking for the Educational Discount with a brief disclosure of how its going
to be used. Along side this cover letter must be a Department PO for the
requested order. Data is not discounted. Updates? The policy has been no
educational discount on "updates" of any sort. For the educational MapInfo
user and their 20 percent of list schedule, it has always been cheaper for
the school or researcher to just buy a new copy. And they have!
Still problems?
If you have any legit school or researcher wanting MapInfo products Farmers
Software Association or Red Hen will help. You deliver the contact, we
confirm the reality, ask for the needed cover letter and PO and they get the
license on a 30-day net term. No ifs, NO buts! We add needed shipping and
don't make a nickel. And we will take calls from these users - happily. We
do not export.
ESRI has had connection to the schools because they were the only horse in
town when UNIX dominated the schools' networks. They had a school-wide
license deal that worked well if the school could host more than 200 seats.
If the school didn't have ESRI's institutional license it was buy at LIST...
Yes, MapInfo has a fair deal for academic researchers and schools. If you
are serious they will help you take care of these future users. Could they
do more? Sure.
FWIW
MidNight Mapper
aka Neil
8/19/00
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