Vancouver, BC, July 17, 2008 - Safe Software, the leaders in spatial ETL and the makers of FME today announced that they have partnered with WeoGeo, known for its marketplace and cloud computing expertise, to bring the powerful data transformation capabilities of FME technology to the cloud. This combined offering will make it easier than ever before for spatial data to be accessed when, where, and how it’s needed.

This partnership will be the first offering of spatial ETL on the cloud. The first phase will strengthen WeoGeo’s data download web site by introducing the data transformation power of FME Server on www.WeoGeo.com. The next phase will provide organizations with the option to deploy FME Server through WeoGeo’s cloud computing expertise using the resources of Amazon Web Services (AWS). This innovative approach will enable organizations to use FME’s powerful data integration and distribution capabilities on the cloud for sharing spatial data with online data consumers on an infrastructure that automatically sizes to match current demand.

“Spatial ETL is the backbone for effective spatial data sharing, enabling data to be distributed in a structure and format that is immediately usable to end consumers.” says Paul Bissett, CEO of WeoGeo. “As the leaders in spatial ETL, Safe Software was the clear choice to partner with in our quest to build a more efficient spatial data exchange solution. Together, our combined expertise will provide a powerful and innovative way for organizations to share spatial data online.”

WeoGeo will use FME technology as the basis for its spatial ETL offerings in the marketplace, providing users with the ability to restructure their spatial data into the required format and data model. Specifically, organizations will be able to author spatial data flows that convert and integrate spatial data using FME Desktop and then push the resulting datasets to the cloud for distribution using FME Server.

“This is another example of our commitment to providing leading-edge solutions that enable the GIS industry to access data no matter how it’s structured or where it’s located,” says Don Murray, President of Safe Software. “By working with WeoGeo, we will enable organizations to take advantage of the cloud’s infrastructure to distribute usable data to those who need it.”

To learn more about this announcement and see FME Server and WeoGeo in action, visit the Safe Software booth #6 and WeoGeo booth #7. See also Safe Software’s and WeoGeo’s presentations at the GeoWeb conference on Thursday, July 24, 2008, including:

• Don Murray’s “Integrating 3D, BIM, Vector, and Raster Data with Spatial ETL” at 10:45 am
• Plenary Session “Visions of the GeoWeb” at 2:30 pm
• Safe Software Vendor Spotlight at 4:20 pm
• WeoGeo Vendor Spotlight at 4:30 pm

You can also learn more about FME Server by visiting www.safe.com/fmeserver or by contacting fmeinfo@safe.com to request a personalized web demo.

About Safe Software and FME

Safe Software powers the flow of spatial data with its software platform, FME. The recognized standard in spatial ETL (extract, transform and load), FME is the only complete solution for data conversion. It delivers the most extensive format support for data translation and integration, and provides unlimited flexibility in data model transformation and data distribution.

FME is used by thousands of customers worldwide in a variety of industries including government, utilities, and petroleum. Its powerful data access technology also makes FME the choice of leading GIS, CAD, and database vendors for integration into their own solutions. Designed for true data interoperability, FME unleashes spatial data so people can use it where, when, and how they want to. For more information, visit www.safe.com.

About WeoGeo

WeoGeo creates a one-stop marketplace for the mapping industry. It supplies surveyors, engineers, cartographers, and scientists with the ability to conveniently store, search, and exchange global mapping and geo-content. Geo-content providers can easily list their data for sale, and users can quickly find the data they need. For more information, visit www.WeoGeo.com.

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Media Contact:

Lakhvir Brar
Marketing Communications Manager
Safe Software Inc.
(604) 501-9985 ex 274
lakhvir.brar@safe.com

Daniel Dye
Technology Evangelist
WeoGeo
(813) 574-3141 ex 106
ddye@WeoGeo.com

FME is a registered trademark of Safe Software Inc. WeoGeo is a registered trademark of WeoGeo Inc. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

WeoGeo is undoubtedly the wonkiest startup on the list. And they’re also the newest to wear the “based in Portland” label. The company moved here from Florida earlier this year and now shares office space with other startups in PSU’s business accelerator. The company describes itself as a “one-stop marketplace for mapping.” But these aren’t maps for Sunday drivers. These are high-resolution, data-intensive maps used by scientists, surveyors and engineers. Users store, sell and buy data. That sounds simple until you see the server-busting size of these maps, which makes distribution, storage and even search functions very difficult.

Combining the searchable and selling aspects of geospatial data was a first, and one that Bissett says has been a big hit. The company, he says, hopes to create an eBay-like effect in the mapping community. But instead of used kitchen utensils, they’re helping sell the data that underlies everything from freeway construction to scientific research.

“This is an important addition to the WeoGeo Market,” said Paul Bissett, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of WeoGeo. “These high-resolution air-photos cover 120 key urban areas in the continental United States - areas where this data is in high demand.”

Aerials Express chose WeoGeo to improve the user experience for geospatial professionals as they search, discover, and purchase their high-resolution imagery. WeoGeo will also host the Aerials Express air-photos on its Amazon Web Services e-commerce platform to provide rapid delivery of the imagery products.

“WeoGeo is an excellent opportunity for our company,” said Bill Landis, President of Aerials Express. “We are looking to WeoGeo’s advanced technology and unique distribution model to enhance the availability of our products into a wider range of GIS related markets.”

WeoGeo creates a one-stop marketplace for the mapping industry. It supplies surveyors, engineers, cartographers, and scientists with the ability to conveniently store, search, and exchange global mapping and geo-content. Geo-content providers can easily list their data for sale, and users can quickly find the data they need. For more information, visit www.weogeo.com.

Aerials-Express was founded in 1999 in Tempe, Arizona by aerial photography pioneer Jerry Landis, Aerials Express’ exclusive collection of up-to-date, high-resolution color aerial imagery serves both commercial and government markets. With their Cessna 421 Golden Eagle and Leica ADS40 Airborne Digital Sensor, the company maintains the most aggressive image acquisition schedule in the industry.

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Amazon Web Services allows companies of all sizes to use the same infrastructure that Amazon.com uses to run its own technology infrastructure. By offering these services on a pay-as-you-go basis, Amazon Web Services is an ideal solution for small companies with big needs like WeoGeo. Amazon Web Services make it possible for an online start-up to get up and running without the massive investment of building their own data center.

“Amazon Web Services brought the WeoGeo vision to fruition faster and more efficiently than we could ever have imagined without them,” said Paul Bissett, Ph.D., CEO of WeoGeo. “The scale of what WeoGeo does is way beyond the typical e-commerce business. To accommodate our business without Amazon Web Services, we’d need to physically build several thousand square feet of data serving space… and we still wouldn’t be as well equipped as we are with Amazon Web Services.”

“We’re excited by the type of innovation we see from companies like WeoGeo,” said Steve Rabuchin, Director of Developer Relations for Amazon Web Services. “WeoGeo’s potential and their use of Amazon Web Services to scale the business were impressive even amongst the many entries we received.”

Top executives from WeoGeo will fly to Amazon headquarters in Seattle to present their business model to a panel of judges on December 6. That evening, the winner will be announced at the AWS Start-Up Challenge Awards dinner, and will receive $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS credits and an investment offer from Amazon.

WeoGeo creates a one-stop marketplace for the mapping industry. It supplies surveyors, engineers, cartographers, architects, and scientists with the ability to conveniently host, discover, and acquire high resolution mapping products. Geo-content providers can easily list their data for sale, and users can quickly find the data they need. For more information, visit www.weogeo.com.

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About the AWS Start-Up Challenge

Contestants were judged on the originality and creativity of the idea, likelihood of long-term success, how well it addresses a need in the marketplace, and implementation of pay-as-you-use Amazon Web Services. Amazon is currently producing a video and promotional materials for the finalists. Online voting and interviews with the judges’ panel will be used to determine the grand prize winner, which will be announced at an Awards Dinner on December 6, 2007. The grand prize includes $100,000 in cash and AWS credits and an investment offer from Amazon.

About WeoGeo

WeoGeo Inc., incorporated August 2006 in Tampa, Florida, is focused on discovery, customization, and delivery of geospatial content. The company hosts its WeoGeo Market (www.weogeo.com) entirely on Amazon’s Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) and utilizes the Simple Storage Service (S3) for storage. Co-founder and CEO of WeoGeo, Dr. W. Paul Bissett, has frequently blogged on the business strategy of using AWS and said of the services, “Providing a superior user experience is one of our key features. Scaling the marketplace with our growth, while maintaining that quality experience is vital to our success. AWS gives us the required scalability along with a pay-as-you go pricing model that has allowed us to develop our business while minimizing capital expenditure.”

In addition to WeoGeo Market, the company sells a load-balancing and scaling solution for EC2 (www.weoceo.com) and stand-alone network attached appliances (server.weogeo.com) with functionality similar to the WeoGeo Market minus financial transactions.

For more information, and to vote online, see:
http://aws.amazon.com/startupchallenge
http://aws.typepad.com/
http://server.weogeo.com
http://www.weogeo.com
http://blogs.weogeo.com/pbissett/

And one crucial point that I think a lot of people miss is the legal intellectual property aspect. Bringing KML into OGC isn’t just about what features end up in that XML format. It’s just as much about making sure the format is royalty-free to use forever.

We use KML as an additional means to help our Users (map consumers) and Providers (map sellers) use the Market. A reduced resolution KML is created for free whenever a dataset is listed by the Provider.

For Providers, a reduced resolution KML button on Panel 4 offers a link to their listing’s KML file. An example of this feature for FERI’s hyperspectral map listing can been seen in the red circle on Figure 1. The link in the red circle provides access to a KML file, which can be used by the Provider as another method to market their map listing through other mapping programs. These links (the one to the listing or the one to the listing’s KML) or the reduced KML itself can be used in any of the provider’s marketing material or blog posts.


Figure 1. WeoGeo Market listing for FERI’s St. Joseph Bay hyperspectral mapping product (click on the image to go the Market listing). The red circle in the bottom left hand corner links to this data product’s reduced resolution KML. The blue circle on the bottom right of Panel 5 is for high resolutions KML products, which are fully tiled and regionized products that the Provider may offer for sale (to be covered in a future post).

For the User, this feature helps them decide whether this map is appropriate for their needs. By viewing the KML in their favorite map viewer, the User can quickly see if this listing intersects with their area of interest or other mapping products. As an example of this feature, here is the KML from the listing in Figure 1 seen in ArcGIS Explorer, World Wind, Google Maps, and Google Earth.

Figure 2. KML listing of FERI’s St. Joseph Bay hyperspectral mapping product offering on WeoGeo Market as seen in ArcGIS Explore v 9.2, build 410. Currently, the KML needs to be saved as a file to your local machine from the link and imported into Explorer. In the balloon is a link directly back to the specific WeoGeo Market listing.

Figure 3. KML listing of FERI’s St. Joseph Bay hyperspectral mapping product offering on WeoGeo Market as seen in Google Maps. In the balloon is a link directly back to the specific WeoGeo Market listing.


Figure 4. KML listing of FERI’s St. Joseph Bay hyperspectral mapping product offering on WeoGeo Market as seen in Google Earth. In the balloon is a link directly back to the specific WeoGeo Market listing.

Figure 5. KML listing of FERI’s St. Joseph Bay hyperspectral mapping product offering on WeoGeo Market as seen in NASA World Wind v 1.4. The KML needs to be saved as a file to your local machine from the link and imported into World Wind.