However, as of November 2010 Manifold.net faces major legal problems. It is being sued along with other for patent infringement by Uniloc Inc. Not for anyhting to do with GIS, but to do with the technology of generating a license key unique to the hardware that a licensed software product is to be installed on, that will unlock the software product to allow its unlimited use.

http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/UnilocNov8Complaint.pdf

In addition to a request to award Uniloc damages and costs, one of the requests to the court being made by Uniloc, is that those who have infringed Uniloc’s patent, be permanently prevented from publishing existing and new software products unlocked using the patented license key generation system.

S.

2) Yet another disruption is the FOSS4G, with products such as QGIS that are starting to be viable alternative to commercial GIS – and they are free. So the ‘cheap but powerful’ is not as relevant as it was only few years ago. While Manifold GIS users will claim that Manifold GIS is much more powerful, what is important that for a lot of entry level users FOSS4G is good enough, and that what matters in ‘purchase’ decisions. Ironically, there is better support and free tutorials for QGIS than to Manifold GIS.

3) We saw a decline in interest in Manifold GIS training over the past year. Interestingly, it also provided evidence of people who considered to go for Manifold GIS but the v.9 delay led them to avoid using the product.

4) I watch with alarm the focus of CDA on CUDA. It doesn’t matter to most GIS users, and it is odd to see a product digging itself into a hole of irrelevance – my guess is that will provide another reason not to buy the product for many people.

The software is very good although it requires an experienced geospatial person to think in new ways. The software documentation is complete, but poorly organised. It could probably be edited down by half without losing any meaning. The software is also has some unique marketing that reminds me more of life insurance than a professional software product.

I have found the forums to be very helpful, but you need to do your homework first or you will get a “RTFM” from one of the company participants. I would be more sympathetic to that if I didn’t find the documentation so difficult to wade through.

I will continue to use Manifold and buy the upgrade if/when it ever arrives. I find myself supplementing my projects more & more with open source GIS software. If I had a spare $15K I would dump it all for ArcGIS.