First a disclaimer, my motivation for this post is not to discredit Manifold the software package or CDA International Ltd. I hesitated for a long time before finally deciding to post this very brief and probably flawed “analysis” based on many assumptions, with the aim to start an earnest discussion on the commercial development of Manifold GIS in a wider market context, based on more than just this starting point of analysis.

For the past 6 years the web forum Georeference has been the hub of the Manifold GIS user community, providing a virtual gathering place for users, enabling the development of a vibrant online community of expert users, sharing knowledge, discussing wider issues and helping novice users on a level that is very rarely encountered in other support forums. I believe it is fair to think that for many users of Manifold GIS, it is the first port  of call when looking for information, help and advice with the software, before making use of paid support from Manifold directly. So as more licenses of Manifold are being sold and used , the number of forum users, posts and threads should increase in parallel. Given this premise, forum activity levels then act as a very imperfect proxy for the market penetration rate of the Manifold GIS software package. There are of course several caveats* to this theory.

The forum thankfully records and shares usage statistics (number of posts/threads per month). I assembled and visualised the growth in terms of forum threads and posts over the past 6 years in the graph attached below. In order to give some context, I also included the release dates of significant versions of Manifold on the graph.

One very fundamental observation from this graph is that since  Manifold v8 has been released, there has been a decline of activity on the forum. Whereas in the preceding years, there was almost uninterrupted growth in user forum activity, right now, over two years after the release of v8, the forum contributions have returned to the level of mid 2006, and trend doesn’t imply a return to growth.Also notable has been the gap between the software release cycle prior to v8, and after. Whereas Manifold used to bring out a major revision each year (2004,2005, 2006,2007), for the past two years, users have been waiting for Manifold v9.

Given the caveats detailed below, what conclusions can the graph give us on the general business development context of Manifold?

I believe it is fair to say that CDA, the company developing Manifold GIS, are a high-tech software company (i hesitate to use the term start up, as they have been on the market for 8-10 years), which have a disruptive product, challenging the established GIS market in terms of pricing structure (and some may argue in terms of software quality/features). The study of disruptive technology innovations has been formalised in a number of theories, one very prominent one being the “Crossing the Chasm” model. This model aims to explain the specifics of marketing of high-tech products, and distinguishes two crucial stages: First, the product is marketed to and adopted by “visionaries”, a small set of users which form a small base of early adopters of the product. In order to gain mass market adoption though, the company crucially needs to gain enough momentum to jump the proverbial “Chasm” towards the pragmatists (early majority). A step at which many high-tech companies ultimately fail!

Manifold certainly has achieved a core basis of highly motivated early adopters which act as voluntary technology evangelists, as evidenced by the very supportive online community, as well as a number of user initiated meetings. From this basis, Manifold has over the past 4 years been working to gain momentum to cross the chasm towards the early majority in the GIS market, rapidly issuing improved software versions, opening a partner centre in Silicon Valley, starting to issue press releases and other media related activities. The success of these measures though lies in the continued rapid pace of updates being sold, given that Manifold do not levy annual maintenance fees from its existing user base.

In my opinion, as of right now, CDA Int. Ltd. are stuck in a limbo between an established early adopters user base, and the early majority user base they are trying to reach in order to significantly advance their market penetration. While they seem to be struggling to finish version 9, their existing user base seems to be eroding, increasingly frustrated by a lack of updates and activation issues, while many of the early majority users, more technically conservative, are holding back from buying in to Manifold, waiting to see what v9 brings to the table.

*Important caveats complicating the estimation of the number of users/licenses from forum activity levels :

1. Not every user of Manifold is an active participant to the forum. Most likely only a very small percentage of Manifold users ever contribute to the forum.
2. Most users will only participate when they have a problem/question they need advice for.
   
3. A given person might be responsible for a varying number of Manifold licenses. This can range from one user with one license, to one administrator who is responsible for hundreds of licenses installed across a company, or embedded as a software component invisible to end users.