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Q How would you like to comment on the manner in which the
visions of Orbimage and SpaceImaging shall come together in
the newly combined company—GeoEye?
A We are combining the best of both companies and will operate
the merged assets as one company with a single face to the
customer headquartered in Dulles, Virginia. Our vision is to be
the premier provider of satellite based geospatial data, information
and value-added products to the National Security community,
strategic partners and commercial customers throughout
the world. We will do that by providing our customers with the
highest quality and most timely geospatial or geospatially
derived information, data, products and services to meet their
requirements. We are off to a good start with a $36 million contract
awarded by the Pentagon just last month for commercial
imagery purchases this year. The U.S. Department of Defense
has committed more than $1.5 billion to commercial satellite
imaging companies in the US. This is to buy imagery and to
partly fund next-generation systems. Clearly our government
finds value in high-resolution commercial imagery.
Q It is understood in the market that “GeoEye” is about GeoInformation
and GeoIntelligence. Is “GeoEye” about re-inventing
or re-branding Orbimage due to the acquisition or is it
about some new product and services offerings and directions?
A Orbimage’s acquisition of Space Imaging was announced on
Jan. 12, 2006 and an entirely new company was formed - Geo-
Eye. Instantly, GeoEye became the world’s largest commercial
remote sensing company with combined revenues of over $160
million and a rich and robust archive of high-resolution satellite
imagery. Last time I checked we had more than 253 million
square kilometers of map-accurate imagery in our digital
archive. While it will likely take us some time to completely settle
in, our primary goal for this year is to execute on our business
plans and manage our contract with the US Government to
build and launch our next-generation system - GeoEye-1 (formerly
OrbView-5). When launched in early 2007, GeoEye-1 will
have a ground resolution of .41-meters panchromatic and 1.6-
meters multi-spectral, the highest resolution ever commercially
offered. So we have much to do as we operate our existing
IKONOS, Orbview-3 and Orbview-2 satellites and build our nextgeneration
system. All of this, while keeping a laser-like focus
on our customers.
Q What is your view on the awareness and usage pattern
of image-derived geospatial information in Asia and
Middle East?
A Asia and the Middle East are fast growing markets. We have
more than a dozen ground stations around the world where
IKONOS satellite imagery can be directly down linked. In Asia
we have customer ground stations in Japan, South Korea, Thailand,
and Singapore. In the Middle East we have customer
ground stations in the UAE and Turkey. So, each Regional Affiliate
can task and control the satellite while in their communication
cone to quickly receive imagery and make it available to
their customers to support commercial and national defense
needs in almost real-time. We are also going to continue to mar-
ket and sell imagery from India’s commercial remote sensing
satellites. The Indian remote sensing market is very well developed
and we work jointly with Antrix and NRSA in India.
Q Is there a product differentiation strategy for Asia and
Middle East?
A The key to success in Asia and the Middle East is through our
Regional Affiliates, Regional Distributors and our reseller partners.
We do not do any direct marketing in these parts of the
world but rely on our strategic partners to service the imagery
needs of their local markets. Any product or service differentiation
would be managed through these strategic partners. For
example, Asia’s predominant market is mapping, and their
cities are experiencing some of the fastest growth rates in the
world. Our Asian affiliates know their markets and can quickly
offer satellite imagery as the most accurate and cost-effective
solution to update their customers’ maps. The broad portfolio of
data products and resolutions from our different satellites
address a majority of the requirements of our customers — from
their medium- to very high-resolution needs.
Q Security and privacy are important and critical issues for certain
regions and countries in this world. What are your policies
on such issues in relation to your products and services?
A We operate under UN principles on Open Skies and under a
license from the U.S. Government. Many more countries will be
operating imaging systems so one’s ability to control the flow of
pixels across borders is rather limited. Also, we have very stringent
procedures in place to assure that we know who our customers
are. We play by the rules and abide by all regulations.
Q With what mechanism do you check or validate the ‘prospective
users’ and the ‘intended use’ of your products and service?
A We have the internal mechanisms in place to meet or exceed
the requirements of the law and regulations. We get continual
updates from various U.S. Government agencies regarding socalled
‘watch lists’ or ‘denied parties lists’ that contain the
names or organizations of those who we are not allowed to do
business with. This screening takes place whenever we set up a
new account and any Regional Affiliate, Regional Distributor or
Reseller must agree to uphold our policies regarding who can
purchase satellite imagery.
Q With IKONOS and OrbView, all within your gamut, how do
you see the future of GeoEye and its offerings?
A The biggest offering coming down the road is imagery from
our next-generation system. Besides .41-meter ground resolution,
it will be able to collect about 700,000 square kilometers
per day. That equates to about the size of Poland, or Turkey. It
will be very agile and it will have ground stations in Virginia,
Alaska, Norway and Antarctica. We have a great story to tell the
market about continuity too. IKONOS will operate through 2008
or longer; OrbView-3 will operate through 2010 or longer; and
GeoEye-1, scheduled for launch in a year, will operate until 2015
or longer. It is great to be able to tell the market, “We can give
you assured access to the highest quality commercial satellite
imagery for the next decade.”
Q Which are the key application areas where the use of satellite
based imageries will grow in the coming years?
A Besides the national security and homeland security aspects
of remote sensing, one area of growth is location-based services.
Mapping at very large scales, especially for topographic mapping,
urban planning and cadastral mapping and updating are
the obvious types of applications which will grow using very
accurate high-resolution imagery. Some 17% of the world’s land
boundaries are in dispute so we think that the need for accurate
maps is critical for solving these issues. The marriage of commercial
imagery with GPS and inexpensive desk-top software
will speed the integration of imagery into societies. And, since
imagery is all digital information, it will flow very easily across
borders over the booming Internet. So, all of this combined will
spark new ways to use our products.
Q OrbView 5, shall soon simultaneously be acquiring 0.41-meter
panchromatic and 1.64-meter multispectral imagery. How will
it have edge over other competitive commercial satellites?
A If you like looking at color then you’ll like looking at imagery
from our next-generation system, GeoEye-1. We will be able to
produce pan-sharpened imagery at very high-resolution. The
new satellite will be agile and collect 7 times the amount of
imagery that IKONOS could in a single day. The accuracy of the
imagery will be better than our competitors and will be able to
revisit any place on earth more frequently than our competitors.
From an altitude of 684 km it’s really an ideal system for largearea
collection. On the financing side of things, GeoEye-1 is fully
funded which reduces any risk for our customers. Also, operating
several satellites enables us to offer customers increased
revisit times and even collaborative tasking when necessary. If
one satellite is out of position then we can task the other to get
the image.
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