For you "mobilebslist"ers interested in GIS we "mapinfo-l"ers have an interest in wireless...... We MapInfo GISers are very curious about the pending wireless era. I guess the thread that we pickup on in the G3 thing is that one of the increasing common features on WEB sites are maps and instructions on how to get to some place (if you know where your are) - a Yellow Pages with instructions on how to get there. There are a number of internet and intranet designs we could go on about..... The PDA GIS model we are concerned with is the difference between the ESRI ArcPad which is a tiny(?) WinCE PDA stand alone GIS for heads-up feet-down GISing and note taking versus the MapInfo design of I what I may reference as GIS-just-in-time via the wireless revolution. For MapInfo the key technology is MapInfo's alliance with Oracle. Oracle as you may know is really pushing the envelope to provide wireless access to their 8i and now 9i Oracle WEB data servers. While 2MB+ G3 remains a glimmer in eyes of the stock market, it offers to the PDA form of wireless access, a very powerful and enabling GIS opportunity. I doubt I will ever carry a GIS in my mobile phone but I just might carry access to a powerful GIS via my wireless PDA. I don't know what the "LBS" thing is other than potentially a reference to how much a person can carry in a pocket? We MapInfo-ites are a bit new to this G3 and wireless thing. May be you could contribute to our discussion? MidNight Mapper aka Neil -----Original Message----- From: Alistair Edwardes [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 9:20 PM To: Neil Havermale; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: MobileLBSList: GIS and Wireless PDAs - MapInfo versus ESRI Neil, Carolyn et al. Do you think there is a risk of placing too much importance with respect to LBS in the PDA Market? As the saying goes "All that glisters is not gold". Whilst all the multimedia extensions may seem superficially tempting - is this really what the mass market wants? I think there is a strong argument to say that people want 'handy' devices that are optimised for making phonecalls, with supplementary data features that provide information useful in a mobile environment. If the supplementary features start to become to obtrusive to the core function, for example by draining battery power or increasing the complexity of interaction, then the device is no longer useful. Of course there are proven niche markets for PDAs, especially in areas such as forestry and data capture where a GIS in the field is exactly what is needed. But in comparison to the 1 Billion market that has been quoted, these are niche markets. Do people really want to carry or even wear a host of devices communicating via bluetooth? What new useful applications does this provide? It seems that many people are looking at super PDA phone hybrids and 2 Mbit 3G as a panacea for LBS, but I'm not sure if mobile GIS is what the mass market needs. What are needed are simple,effective, personalised and timely application services which can readily be implemented with thin clients on more pedestrian technologies. I hope this isn't too off topic from the original thread! Regards Alistair To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________ The MobileLBSList is brought to you by The GeoCommunity and The WirelessDeveloperNetwork http://www.geocomm.com http://www.wirelessdevnet.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put "unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
