Sometimes we can miss how large marketplaces can be, and their importance to development new ecosystems and technologies. The iPhone app market gives a glimpse as to why a SaaS-based application platform is so important for future geospatial business growth.

While the iPhone article describes a consumer based platform (mobile phones) for applications, the concept for a geospatial application platform is similar. By providing a platform on which developers can “write their own visions” of products, more products are developed, tested, purchased, and discarded at a much higher frequency than previous enterprise development cycles. This increase in the velocity of the product development cycle will provide opportunities in the future beyond those previously seen in the traditional software business. It will also increase the risk of marginalization of current software packages.

Our mission has been to develop a means to bring platform technologies to the geospatial industry. We focused on content first, because most of the current value of geo-knowledge is “stored” in the content produced under professional services and consulting contracts. The geospatial content are also larger and has proprietary file issues that are not necessarily seen in the consumer web space, which add to the difficulties in providing a true application platform to the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI).

However, it became clear to us about 2 years ago that cracking the content index, search, customization, and delivery process required developing an application platform along with the content management platform. So we began the process of creating an application platform that is accessible through APIs, which we then used to build our content management platform. Furthermore,we sought a partnership with a vendor who could supply additional transforms and ETL functions (Safe Software), which we could expose via our SaaS offerings, to allow others to build their own applications. We have thus created a geospatial application platform that will allow others to rapidly create their own small, but very targeted applications. By providing this application platform at the same time as providing the content management and financial services, all on a scalable SaaS-based architecture, we are poised to create an ecosystem around developer-driven applications and content.

This application/content (de-)evolution from the traditional software vending models is happening all around us. It will come to the SDI, probably a little later than other consumer driven niches, but it is coming. We strive to be that platform that others use to make money, and in that process help change our world.