spatial networks | location leverage

There are some things we love. There are some things we hate, sometimes passionately. There are even some things we love to hate. In rare circumstances, there are even things we love to hate to love. Google is one of those rare things that I love to hate to love. I’m envious, perhaps even jealous of the company’s success and dominance in the geospatial web technologies space and the inertia is has generated shows no signs of decline any time soon.

The recent announcement by Google to embark on developing a computer operating system to compete with Microsoft isn’t surprising and not even the reason I love to hate to love them. What may be unsettling is the fact that this really is an existential threat to Microsoft (not to mention ESRI, but that is another post and more near-term than long-term). Let me explain what this will likely mean to Microsoft and what this means to the geospatial industry and why it is important.

When Google succeeds (notice the affirmative stance, as there is ample evidence to suggest they haven’t quite figured out how to fail as often or as catastrophically as the rest of us…), they will have an operating system for every computing device available (mobile handheld, laptop, PC and dare I say, server). They (Google) already have the web applications realm well honed and in a comprehensive manner, the last piece of the puzzle to usurp the kingdom that is Microsoft is the control of the operating systems that run those computing devices. Android was a start and a precursor of things to come, now realized.  

True to form, Google will likely have enough cash on hand at the time of the future "launch" that they could, if they were smart (which, clearly they are and no one needs me telling them this..) strike some major OEM arrangements with hardware manufacturers to have their OS pre-installed and ready to ship, just like you have the choice today of Windows or Linux for example. However, Google’s OS will undoubtedly and in elegant fashion, work extraordinarily well with all the online applications and services under Google’s collective "hood", out of the box and always-on-demand. Once more, Google could take the extraordinary step of giving away their devices (when was the last time consumers paid for anything that Google provides?) and thereby flooding and the entrenched incumbent (Microsoft) with an overwhelming show of force (like the IT version of the Powell Doctrine). Google could easily justify the expense of the equipment and shipping because, in true Google fashion, they would have a EULA that enables them to leverage consumer behavior at the OS level unlike anyone, including Microsoft has ever been able to master. This leverage would be the foundation for the business justification for capital expenditures on equipment for "free" to the consumer (perhaps at an upper limit of a few million initial freebies) because Google would know that the information generated at the OS level, not to mention the application interactions and "always-on" nature of the Google OS-powered computers would generate geometric value in advertising capabilities, and that is where Google stands alone.

Furthermore, given my bias towards geography, and the love-hate-love intellectual relationship I have with Google, I see the obvious play here at the OS-level; that Google Earth/Maps would be one of the core components of the OS engine and would be engineered and designed to maximize every bit and byte in a geospatial context, again, for derivative business intelligence (internal to Google) to amplify their ability to drive ad revenue and downstream-value off the charts. It’s coming and it will be a reality, because, as I have stated repeatedly over the years and yet to be disproven, geography is the science of everything, and Google’s mission is to catalog the world’s information and make it available - it is only natural and entirely human to portray that on a map. And what do we know about maps - aside from being the coolest thing since sliced bread, they make the complex story simple, they convey what words, charts, tables, graphs and sound bites cannot. Geography as an indispensable part of Google’s OS is great news for the geospatial industry.

Now, this is an existential threat to Microsoft, as I stated above. Microsoft could, should and will do the following in response to Google. They could "compete" at some point; that is, wait a couple more years until they feel truly threatened by the Google OS computer potential, and then start lowering their per license fees for everything Microsoft in an effort to push off the inevitable or salvage a portion of the market in some sort of unequal equilibrium. They should be bold and open-source all they have now. Let me repeat for emphasis. They should be bold and open-source all they have now. This would accomplish two primary things; a) it could potentially make Google rethink the OS strategy for now, or forever, but it might only delay its true threat to Microsoft by another few years, even a decade and b) it would put Microsoft’s big brains on notice that they need to get busy and move up the value-chain and innovate. Talk about a resurgent powerhouse contribution to economic recovery! Alas, what Microsoft will do is nothing. They will continue to take for granted its global user base, it will continue to be status-quo in technology innovation, it will ignore the threat from Google’s OS until it finds itself in a death grip, and by then it will be too late
 

There is now Diet Nestea Iced Tea in the refrigerator at Spatial Networks! This alone is enough to make my week, but I’m also learning about different things at work which is fun. I’m learning about web marketing, html, GIS, and mobile technologies which are all very exciting to nerds like me. I’m learning about new things and learning how things I have always known about can be used better. I’ve learned to back up my data whenever possible too…ha. There is a digital war going on out there for marketshare and a continued search for innovation. When companies stop looking at their competitors and stop listening to people they get into trouble like Myspace has. Geodexy, Terkserv, and other Spatial Networks programs have the potential to take on the mobile application market priced at the right price and by providing the right easy to use features to consumers. It’s defiantly important to make sure they are near perfect before being released to the masses, and that leaves time to get a great marketing plan with a timeline ready too. I guess that’s why Spatial Networks needs Software Engineers, Mobile Application Developers, and an International Sales Engineer (careers@spatialnetworks.com). Trust me this software has the potential to make it and I will love learning from you if you come aboard. People here will listen to you and your ideas. It’s a great place to work…even for an intern because hey…there’s free soda, coffee, nerf fights, and sometimes food. We have an intern that should have been a chef! Plus you will get paid and can laugh at me! I only dream about money while biding my time, learning, and finishing my last class for my B.S. Apply for the win!

Are you looking for an energetic, fast-paced, and fun environment with lots and lots of coffee?

Spatial Networks, Inc. allows each and every team member the opportunity for a great career and financial success.   Spatial Networks, Inc. also offers an outstanding benefits package including medical, dental, vision, 401k and more.

Spatial Networks, Inc. is currently hiring intelligent, creative, software engineers with Ruby on Rails experience, Mobile Application Developers and an International Sales Engineer to develop the next generation of our web application software products and platforms.

This is an excellent opportunity to come work in a fun and relaxed environment with a group of equally smart and driven people where you will have the opportunity to make a difference and contribute to the development of some cutting edge software systems.  Please contact our website (http://www.spatialnetworks.com) or you can email your resume to (careers@spatialnetworks.com). Please, no phone calls.

The Spatial Networks product team catches CEO in the act of dishing on Geodexy.

More Geodexy videos at: http://www.youtube.com/user/geodexy

Just a little light reading this morning over coffee. I’m about to take this on the road for some ultra-mobile data collection - really looking forward to getting my fists on that QWERTY XL keyboard!

 A reseller of a competitor’s mobile data collection platform said this to me once about his own product. I appreciate his honesty, and at the same time it’s been haunting me for months. People are paid to go out and collect data, that is once and forever completely useless to anyone. (How’s that for serving up a heaping dose of morale?) [Incidentally, in a not-uncharacteristic stroll down Anthropomorphism Lane, I have this visual of a little tree - sometimes wearing a "College" t-shirt - being fed into the mill like so many turkeys at a Sarah Palin interview, and coming out on the other side as stuffing for some manilla folder in a storage shed, never to be looked at again… It’s sad, what the little tree’s life is reduced to, it makes me want to run into the parking lot and hug the ones that are carefully landscaped into the pavement jungle - but then I think how good they have it, with job security and all, and it’s not the same… More coffee, please.] Just think about decades worth of data about your business, critical assets, even human resources, just sitting in a box somewhere - impervious to pattern review, cost analysis, or any other useful bit of aggregation. If it makes you crazy, you are probably more sane than you realize!

 I recently submitted an abstract about this topic to the Mobile Asia Congress. Yes, I know, I’m actually TRYING to ensnare myself in another inescapably horrifying round of public speaking - in Hong Kong!? I think my next move may be skydiving into shark-infested waters… Anyway, I officially acknowledge that I’m much better with the written word (toot), but I also know that "practice makes perfect" is a universally accepted theory. But this time, at least the concept is not foreign (nor polarizing -> BONUS!). It’s simply about reducing paper waste. (RIP, Woody!) That’s the simply "Green" part anyway. The "enterprise management" part is much more complex, and IMHO, exciting. Therein, we have escaped the paper trap of collecting, storing, and managing (as if) data - KNOWLEDGE!! - in a folder made of ‘manilla’, whatever that is. Folders made of informed, organized, accessible Database goodness - NOW we’re cookin’ with grease!