Comments for Spatial Knowledge

Comment on Manifold – Crossing the Chasm ? by Muki Haklay

Muki Haklay — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:37:36 +0000

Hi Patrick,
I like this analysis, and I would throw few other points into the thinking:
1) Another market disruption is having an impact, which includes new platforms for Internet mapping such as the GYM APIs, which make Manifold GIS proposition of cheap IMS less relevant

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.

Comment on Manifold – Crossing the Chasm ? by gustavo palminha

gustavo palminha — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:09:08 +0000

Hello.
Its an interesting analisys, i suspected that tyou would reach results like this.
we do not know a lot what’s really the deeph od manifold inside gis market, but for the price i suspect that is probably heavy.
This application has a old fashioned GUI but its effective, so lets see what v9 will bring.
I can’t believe that they wont release v9 this year, if they dont release as far as manifolds credebility will be seriouly damaged.
Regards.

Comment on Five low hanging fruit: quick usability fixes Manifold should consider by miken

miken — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:15:20 +0000

scruss, common. “expensive joke”, “shock-troops” and not using “layers”. I have been trained in ESRI porducts and have used Manifold. Both have their unique issues, but Manifold is quite easy to understand and use. It is readily picked up by our untrained staff. The support people are quite helpful as is the forum. The price is in the $200 range depending on what features you want. It is unhelpful to just blurt out funny little comments, I’m not sure you have enven used the product.

Comment on Manifold – Crossing the Chasm ? by Vincent Fréchette

Vincent Fréchette — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:14:40 +0000

I think this is a very good reading of the situation.

Comment on Manifold – Crossing the Chasm ? by Richard Rupp

Richard Rupp — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:10:31 +0000

I have been a Manifold user since 2006. I originally purchased the software as an affordable alternative to ArcGIS to do some private consulting work. Back then the alternatives couldn’t match the functionality provided by Manifold for the price. With the growth of open source alternatives I’m not sure this is still the case.

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.

Comment on Manifold – Crossing the Chasm ? by GIS-Lab Blog» Архив блога » Новости вокруг 38

GIS-Lab Blog» Архив блога » Новости вокруг 38 — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:02:46 +0000

[...] Развитие и текущее состояние Manifold GIS. Частное мнение об экономике проекта. [...]

Comment on Manifold – Crossing the Chasm ? by admin

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:19:01 +0000

Probably should have specified that I simply took the stats that the forum provides, they dont specify what they mean by threads, I presume its new threads per month.

Comment on Manifold – Crossing the Chasm ? by Michael Sumner

Michael Sumner — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:25:02 +0000

Is that new threads per month, or active threads per month?

How did you harvest the data? I’ve been meaning to do somthing similar for a while, it would be nice to set this up as an ongoing monitor.

Comment on User Interface Mockup for GIS by Bo Dunaway

Bo Dunaway — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:29:18 +0000

This is a great methodology! I’ve been using SketchFlow as a great tool to interactively take my clients through the design/build process. The nice feature about this tool is that it is part of the Microsoft Expression Studio kit and takes the “drafts” to final product almost seamlessly.

Comment on Manifold – Crossing the Chasm ? by ecarr

ecarr — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:21:35 +0000

One quick comment is I feel most of the recent Manifold changes have been oriented towards scaling the functionality to really large, enterprise like data sets and collections. My personal opinion is focusing on the masses and making GIS / spatial analysis easier is a lot more compelling a value proposition for Manifold vs. chasing the embedded ArcGIS accounts (which are probably challenged / shrinking as is). It is kind of a re-segment / new market strategy which has risks. But getting into the enterprise support and enterprise spatial DB game is a lot higher risk / reward vs. trying to take advantage of the hugely growing interest in LBS and spatial data in the broader tech community.