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2014 - Brief predictions of the Geo context

The time has come to close this page, and as happens in the custom of those of us who close annual cycles, I drop a few lines of what we could expect in 2014. We will talk more later but just today, which is the last year:

Unlike other sciences, in ours, trends are defined by the circle of what happens to hardware and the use of the Internet.

On the one hand, more robust tablets + more capable operating systems + solutions that are gradually replacing Laptops = more tablet sales… Not necessarily cheaper but in relation to their capacity. Smartphones taking their place in communication due to the limitation of size.
And from the side of the web: Almost everything from the cloud, interacting with almost any software that survives on the desktop, more productive uses of social networks, more vain inventions to bring the real world to the web.

In free GIS software

It will be an interesting year for OpenSource. QGis, with the great harvest event; As it is software that matured after the community, it will have fewer challenges to sustain than gvSIG, which currently has many communities but few fully dedicated developers. We understand and congratulate the effort made by the Foundation to place the model, but we also believe that it could be started earlier, when more money flowed that was invested in an almost double development, somewhat late, which consequently brings a high cost of sustainability.

Free software is not about competing, it is not about who is better. But it is vital to survive with solvency in a context of high demand from users, the trend towards the cloud, mobile phones on Android systems, the multidiscipline that merges the simplicity of geomarketing with the precision of topography, sensor applications remote locations and proximity to geoengineering.

The models are different, but you have to learn from both. The challenge for the internationalization of gvSIG is promising, but it must be producing mature business and balanced messages. The effort not to reinvent the QGis wheel is wise, but they should prevent the monopoly for high-end support.

Before we saw an intention with Portable GIS, but now we think the vision of Boundles, formerly known as OpenGeo, which now offers support and added values on a solution that integrates part of the ecosystem:

The robustness of QGis as a thin client,
All OpenLayers development props,
The indisputable capacity of GeoServer for data on the web, added to GeoWebCache to make tessellation more efficient,
And PostGIS / Postgres for management, analysis both down and in the cloud and taking books of passage of sufficient acceptance.

Questions are required:

What is the other combo?

Will libraries not connected to this line survive?

What will be the gvSIG Boundles?

What is the combination with MapServer?

Will uDIG reach its big brother's popularity?

Will SEXTANTE survive if your godfather becomes obsessed with GRASS?

How many developers does gvSIG have now?

How much of this does ESRI use under that pretty face?

Many of these responses are not of interest to the common user, but to decision makers, either because they have already taken them, or because they are urgent.

And despite the uncertainty, we must acknowledge with great satisfaction that never before has open source GIS software been at such a promising time. So 2014 is promising, for the record, not for everyone. Those popularized for creating an ecosystem, the others for growing in community, specializing in whatever.

Private software.

Here the trend is different, because the interests are economic, such that we will see a similar behavior in the big ones:

ESRI, at your leisure.
AutoDesk reaching out to larger partners due to the fragility of the stock market crises. Aware that GIS is not his business, getting more into manufacturing, animation and architecture.
Intergraph increasingly part of the super solution that makes up Geomedia + Erdas.
Bentley buying more business customers running, in its niche: Engineering and Plant infrastructures. In GIS area, only the trend towards tablets and the ability to interact with field teams.
Mapinfo ... Is it still in PB's priorities?

Not the big ones in theirs.

Supergis, in his endless daring for what ESRI does, and looking for western markets.
GlobalMapper, stable, suffering from piracy that does not forgive a tool that does not do everything but what it does ... Our respect. It does well.
Manifold GIS ... No forecast, after so many years of drought compared to its initial aggressiveness.
Others ... Looking for a magic formula.

When is LibreCAD?

It is surprising how much progress we have already made, with something that had been abysmally behind. Despite the effort, they cannot find a way to consolidate the community ... which in my opinion will never happen if they focus on a discipline that is itself obsolete. A 2D CAD to make construction plans that is not conceived in BIM, is doomed to be forgotten.

Business Trend in 2014

At least in our context, it will take a while for what we know will happen one day: Real world modeling (BIM), where disciplines will converge: data capture, geospatial, CAD design and infrastructure operation.

In 2014 CAD will insist on modeling BIM, but its path will be slow due to the adolescence of standards. The slowness of OpenSource in CAD is again to blame, since it is the one that presses and materializes the standards. Among the big ones, design will get a little closer to operation, some BIM but limited to use in specialized contexts. The best result will revolve around the standards for smart cities, which is progressing, for now so that manufacturers and developers think about being ready, but there is still much to wait.

It will be a great year for the Cadastre, let's remember what year it is, and surely the FIG smokers will continue intense analysis of what happened with the 2014 Cadastre declarations. In the modeling smoked, much progress was made towards standards and real examples of the LADM, he died a lot From conventional cartography, academia and private companies have positioned themselves quite well, but not all public institutions advanced at the same pace, so cost recovery is questionable and whether public law really appears as information in workflows that make life easier for the user.

So the comprehensive GIS business will continue to revolve around geolocation, which is a great achievement. But we are aware that GIS has more to offer, in many disciplines that still dispense with its richness. This year we can expect more from the capture and modeling equipment, although we cannot say that it will consolidate a trend in businesses in which non-specialists have their eyes.

America will have its great year, with its eyes set on the World Cup in Brazil, it will attract several international events. And we will see the experiment of doing the Latin American Geospatial Forum in Mexico.

Otherwise

We must be positive. Happy to have seen social media accounts turned into businesses, blogs gain authority, a NosoloSIG who returns with great success, a son successfully finish high school, an elderly mother give us one more year of company ...

... a girl light our eyes like that first time, in the dark corner, in the car cabin, in the classroom, in the big window of life ...

Happy and prosperous New Year.