GIS meets e-Business: Web Pricing & Ordering Service (WPOS)
Methods Of Complex Pricing and Licensing Used Today
The trade of geo data is in a time of change. The classical product was a map. It was not configurable and
could not be easily processed to another product or service. With the introduction of digital data as a
product to be traded, most pricing and licensing models were useless. Some of the new price models for
digital data are quite complex, because they take many configuration parameters into account. The absolute
prices per unit are in many European states quite high. Therefore only necessary data will be configured
and used. There are some general approaches:
Licensing Models
The property GeoInformation cannot be purchased. It is only possible to buy a license for this product.
Trading GeoInformation is in many cases similar like trading software. But GeoInformation as data can be
used by different specialized applications. Therefore, the pricing is different. This list of elements are preselected.
Other elements may be common as well. A processing fee is very typical. It will be charged for
each order for general efforts. Some data suppliers have a fixed fee as a result of the full automated
production. This part of the general package is a fee for the use of the data. In some cases it is limited by
time or by the number of workstations. Private or educational use will be treated very often much different
than commercial use. The commercial license is an additional fee for a product. An example is a software
on CD-ROMS with a commercial fee of 3 % of its selling price in the stores. The commercial component is
very irregular. It is often part of negotiations.
Pricing Models
The market with geo-referenced Information is still developing. Therefore many different pricing models
are in use today. In general, there is a certain relationship between the selected price model and the history
of the data supplier. Some data suppliers have their roots in other branches or are founded a few years ago.
In this paper some popular methods are described and discussed to focus the large variety to be supported
by a common data format.
After introducing the first CAD Systems in the geo branch, vector graphics could be used to express georeferenced
objects. The determination of the number of objects or lines in selected area is very easy by
using a CAD System. In some cases the number of lines is taken as a main pricing parameter. In some other
cases it is the number of objects. There is a close relationship between the density of geodata, the effort to
survey, the effort to maintain and their price. To give an example, each line could cost 0.1 cent. The price
of the same number of square-kilometer once in the city center will be much higher than in the forest.
The number of inhabitants in a selected area is another approach for the main price parameter. A high
concentration of people requires more infrastructures. On the other hand, geo-referenced Information in a
high-populated area has a higher value, because more people could use it.
Another approach is the pre-definition of datasets by administrative borders. Each unit has an own price. A
pre-configured product has the classical disadvantage that potential applications, which are situated at the
border, are forced to purchase two or more datasets. To reduce this fact, small units like cities or even vote
districts are used. On the other hand, administrative borders are quite known and often used.
For the basic definition of a spatial object in a reference system, co-ordinates are used. Three or more coordinates
easily define an area and with it a price. This approach is universal. It does not depend on any
other parameter. The disadvantage is, that it does not include any densities. The zone model pre-defines
zones with a different coefficient and a basic price per area. Typical zones are center of cities, urban areas
with lower population density and open landscape, e.g. forests. The zone model is a compromise. Different
average efforts are expressed with different price coefficients per zone. This approach has several
advantages:
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A potential user is able to determine a price without any direct supplier contact.
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Due to the fact that the price model does not need a direct access, it can be printed on paper and
distributed.
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It is often accepted, that a price increases from low populated land to center of cities.
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A chain of co-ordinates (polygon) and a priority list of zones can easily define and exchange
the pricing zones.
