As it turns out, the work done to develop GIS through the last 30 years now appears more significant than ever. So much for marginalization. GIS may have found its bridge across the chasm, although it probably will be known by a different name. The pool of potential acquirers has expanded to include names like Verizon, Alcatel, Nortel, Nokia, Ericcson, Motorola and others. But opportunity comes bundled with challenge.
Location services raises the ante in geospatial processing.
Successful location systems must be more open, secure, scalable and as close to 100 percent reliable as possible. Sharing the Benefits Traditional users also will benefit from the location-services boon. Current users will upgrade to more powerful, reliable and probably lower-cost geospatial platforms to support existing GIS functions. They also will be able to embrace a profusion of location-based wireless enterprise applications. That's probably the No. 1 question on the minds of everyone involved in the fledgling location-services space.