Open ESRI

Two developments in recent weeks really have caught my eye:

(1) ESRI releases its Geoservices REST specification, (via James Fee's blog) and,

(2) ESRI's geoportal is offered for free and more significantly open source (via Directions mag - all point blog)

What is significant here for me is not the fact that they are seen to be following trend and answering to the needs of their clients but that they seem to be positioning themselves to follow the very successful strategy adopted by, for example, Red Hat.

By releasing more of the functionality into the open domain they will be able to concentrate on offering services in implementing and administering a GIS. In an environment were the code is in the users domain, development will no doubt grow at a pace not easily achievable with the constraints of in-house development. As a result the key to success and to ESRI's survival is to be able to help their clients handle the pace of these releases.

With the cloud now being seen as a real way forward we will no doubt see ESRI take more unfettered steps to offering a suite of cloud solutions, whether that be in partnership or going it alone, and this repositioning we are currently seeing will no doubt aid in this.