The idea of cloud computing is that software can be delivered online as a service, accessing all functionality online, without the need to service or directly control the underlying technology infrastructure. Previously this was known as an application service provider, and there are plenty of successful examples with probably the most prominent mainstream example of Salesforce. Within the geospatial community, there are plenty of good examples of software as a service, with Microsoft’s Virtual Earth and ESRI’s ArcGIS Online Services as good examples.
Some of the rudimentary geospatial tools have been online as a service for quite some time, starting with MapQuest maps and directions. The sophistication of these online offerings has increased over time, and individual organizations have been able to create their own web map services for some time. There remains the distinction that full GIS functionality is a more complex and specialized task with a relatively small audience of specialists with the primary need to author data.
Expert Systems
I realize the existence of the debate about “professional” versus “amateur” users, and I just don’t get the irritation. The fact is that very few users of geospatial applications will use expert features for their work. There may be just 5% of the overall user base of a Google Earth or similar application that will need and want extended tool sets for data creation. Making the case for professional versus amateur tools is really just a distinguisher of market size and purpose, instead of a “diss” against those that develop web-based systems and tools.
If the debate is mostly purpose-based, then I think it’s far off base. I suppose another position in the debate is a question along the lines of, “Web-based tools can do all that GIS tools can do, so why would you ever need a desktop tool set again?” I acknowledge that a fair amount of the functions of the professional tools can be satisfied with online tools, but I simply don’t see why you’d want to go online for everything, particularly in the enterprise space. A great deal of control is still needed to accurately conduct spatial analysis or create map products, and I don’t see those tasks going online completely for some time to come.
Control Controls the Debate
Predominantly geospatial capabilities are purchased by organizations, and by companies of such a size and complexity that they feel they must control these systems, particularly when they’re of a critical nature to operations and/or contain proprietary information that must be kept from competitors. I also wonder how long performance, security and reliable accessibility issues will exist for Internet-based applications. I see each three of these issues as considerable barriers for complete cloud adoption, although I’m aware that good progress is being made on the Internet infrastructure front. Power outages do happen, and we’re facing issues of increasing natural events. Simply bringing up the disaster scenario is enough to end the discussion of going solely online in many user circles.
There exists a tool for purpose issue that isn’t easily solved for all delivery mechanisms. Geospatial technologies seem destined for parallel development on desktop, server, web and mobile platforms for some time to come. Geospatial applications will certainly exists on the cloud, and they may become one of the primary markets in terms of the number of users that regularly utilize them. But parallel platforms will exist that are best tuned to different user communities.
Read what Jeff Thurston has to say on this topic here.
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