A rather ominous forecast for our industry in the latest market research released last week - a mere 1% growth as opposed to 11% last year. The European markets are the worst impacted while North America is relatively better off due to the contracts and funds flow for home land security. It was a depressing thought as human acts of destruction and resulting chaos flashed, and just to prevent these acts we have the funds flowing. Some of the top geospatial business houses have a major part of their products as well as services portfolio specifically designed keeping home land security in mind. The very term 'home land security' is bound to bring a sense of patriotic spirit in most and the purse strings will be loosened a bit more even where federal stimulus funds are concerned. Wonder if this latest market research has found out how much of the $5.25 billion worldwide revenue of the geospatial industry comes just due to a 'threat perception' and why are the 'industry CEOs' upbeat about the next year?

Any large contract, even the geospatial ones, have a trickle down effect and some of the sub contracts would have been out sourced. So a perceived threat can lead to worldwide growth!!! at least in some domains.