Keynote Papers
Geomatics In the Internet Era
K.K. Singh
Rolta India Limited, Rolta Bhavan, Andheri, Mumbai 400093
Tel: 91-022-8327708, Fax: 91-022-8365992
Email: cmd@rolta.com
Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen. It gives me a great pleasure to be at this august gathering. Here we have eminent personalities in the field of Geomatics, practising professionals, vendors as well as the Internet users. This truly represents the cross section of the Geomatics community of today.
Rolta has been one of the pioneers in the field of CAD/CAM and GIS since 1985. Now, it has initiated innovative work in the area of e-solutions and Internet services also. I feel happy and honoured in being provided the opportunity to share my thoughts on this topical issue of `Geomatics in the Internet Era'.
Geomatics as you are aware, encompasses the whole spectrum of solutions and services in the arena of geo-data acquisition, analysis and dissemination. On the other hand, the Internet has come to be accepted as the medium for "sharing, accessing and distributing data". It is the "most powerful communication medium on this planet". I would like to present, how Geomatics solutions and service providers are gearing up to meet the growing demands of the "consumers" in this Internet era.
The Current Era of Geomatics
Today Geomatics industry has entered the IT mainstream. The earlier era was characterized by applications running on proprietary platforms, which could not "communicate" with each other. Connectivity, enterprise integration and mobile computing, characterize the current era which is dominated by the Internet. In fact, over the last few years, the Internet and related Intranet developments have come to dominate the computer industry. It is clear, that geographic information is becoming an increasingly important component of the traffic through the Web, for all industries.
Today, cars are being equipped with GPS navigation systems. Corporate databases are having a spatial component. Starting with this millennium, more and more people will prefer to surf the corporate database spatially, rather than alphabetically. The Web pages, and most of the database forms, will have a spatial dimension.
Rapid advancements in telecommunications support the idea of a mobile citizen. In the near future, digital assistants will provide e-mail, mobile phone and GPS capabilities. Service teams requiring information on a client location or a visitor to a city looking for the nearest restaurant of his choice are increasingly utilising the basic technology based on geographic information. GIS in a connected world demands an open environment, where data is available "on tap".
Internet : The Great Leveler
These developments in the application environment, are influenced by customer expectations, fuelled by the increasing utilization of the Internet. Let us look at some of the Internet features, which now influence the development of Geomatics products and the availability of services :
- Internet has empowered consumers like nothing else ever has. Think about this : Already 25% of car buyers in USA shop online before showing up at a dealership, and they aren't comparing car prices. They're arming themselves with information on dealer costs. The new reality is consumer control, and it's as ominipotent as it sounds.
Though the Internet still represents a minute fraction of total purchases, its growth is mind-boggling. In a recent study, Jupiter Communications reported that 17 million people in the U.S. had bought something over the Net in 1998, and it expects 100 million to do so this year - up from virtually none a few years ago. The total of all the Internet revenue opportunity from 1999 to 2003 is projected by IDC at an aggregate of about 2.7 trillion Dollars of economic activity. There is no other channel where revenues are growing anywhere near this fast. The Web will fundamentally change customers' expectations about convenience, speed, comparability, price and service. Indeed, Internet represents the ultimate triumph of consumerism.
- Today's consumers demand not just independent advice but also vendor-neutral distribution channels. E-commerce visionaries like Junglee, C2B Technologies and Inktomi have developed powerful search engines that allow consumers to search for products and bargains all across the Net. Using a virtual database that integrates information from dozens of online merchants, and intelligent agents that scan that information to find the best deal on a particular product, Junglee aims to let consumers do comparison-shopping on a scale previously unimagined. Suddenly, instead of searching ten different sites, would-be buyers can view the results of a Netwide search in one easy-to-read table. C2B's shopping platform gives Web-shoppers information on nearly a million products and connects them with hundreds of merchants. Junglee and C2B are the vanguard of a new generation of information intermediaries that help customers get at the truth.
- The next major impact will be on geographical boundaries for consumers as well as sellers. E-commerce breaks every business free of its geographic moorings. No longer will geography bind a company's aspirations or the scope of its market. Amazon.com spans the globe, selling 20% of its books to foreign destinations. A physical bookstore serves an area of few square miles, and you can't peruse its inventory without going to the store. But whether you're in Mumbai or Zambia, Amazon.com is a click away.
The death of geography will make it difficult for producers to set different prices around the world. This is already a reality for software that is paid for and downloaded over the Internet. No longer is a customer willing to pay 150 Pounds in London for a piece of software that costs 150 Dollars in New York City. Online commerce will destroy these anomalies. No company will be able to charge a premium when consumers know precisely what things cost elsewhere.
Today's buyers - the most harried consumers in history - are flocking to the Net because it's simply the most efficient place to shop for a whole range of goods and services. In a world of nucleus families, demanding jobs and quality time that's measured in nanoseconds, search economies will become hugely attractive to consumers.
Search economies are one-half of the new convenience equation. Fulfillment is the other half. The goal is not just to minimize the hassle of finding something but to minimize the hassle of getting it as well.
Retailers still tell customers, you have to come to us. But online consumers are saying, you have to come to us. My place, my time is the new mantra of consumers everywhere.
Geomatics Solution Providers
The GIS vendor community, has recognized the demands of the consumers and potential of the Internet. It is clear, that none of the proprietary file formats or operating systems, were designed to take advantage of the Web. Forced by the market pressures, vendors have come together to develop interoperability standards and non-proprietary formats, even at the "risk of losing customers previously `captured' by deep investments in their proprietary systems". They cooperated with the Open GIS Consortium (OGIS), a non-profit organization, to develop interoperability standards and products like GeoMedia.
The solution providers have also recognized that today's geomatics user is likely to be much less technically qualified and unwilling to invest in extensive training. As the Internet becomes ever more pervasive, the geomatics industry would undergo far reaching changes. The Internet is already introducing many more people to geomatics and setting new standards for interactivity, ease of use and pricing. With the evolution of Application Service Providers (ASPs), consumers would have the option to down load applications, depending on their needs, eliminating the hassles of software ownership, obsolescence and so forth. This very much represents the business perspective and the future of Geomatics.
It is self-evident that a service industry should be "focused upon customer-orientated services", new millennium or not. The digital revolution in photogrammetry has overthrown the century-old establishment in less than a decade. Thanks to the new regime, consumers, - can now even "serve themselves". Low-cost consumer products will lead the market demand. This phenomenon is a prelude to major change, similar to that caused by word processing technology in the typesetting industry. In the final analysis, consumers do not care how goods are produced. To them, the ultimate "end-to-end" solution is having their expectations met at a reasonable price.
At Rolta, we are adopting many of these practices, while servicing our customers world-wide.
To summarize, Geomatics is no longer the domain of a select club of Geomatics `experts'. It has entered the mainstream - IT and with it the second era of GIS has begun. This era is characterized by `open solutions' and the dominance of the Web.
It is true, that the Internet dominated era, raises frightening questions regarding adaptability and survival. The GIS data sector as well as the solutions vendors, can no longer ignore them and have to urgently gear up to meet these demands.
Ultimately, the mantra for survival in this era, would be the same as in the earlier era: "relentless innovation and unparalleled service", of course delivered in newer ways. I have no doubts, that the Indian industry would gear up and meet these challenges head on.
Finally, Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for your attention and wish you all a very fruitful time at this Conference.
