Questions

必须有数百万，他们躺在书架上并在咖啡桌上萎缩，在阁楼和古代古代书店的框中;有些人将是全新的，几乎从未触及过，其他人通过沉重的用途撕裂。对于更好的地点和旅程到未知的海岸的梦想，很多人将是灵感的源泉，其他人只是对事实上的事实旅行或物流过程的可视化的援助。有些是精美的说明，其他人沉闷。有些属于几乎无价的收藏品，其他人不值得第二个外观。但总是他们是现实的代表性。当然，我谈论的地图集。

Remember those old-fashioned, printed books with maps, legends and registers? Publishers have made billions out of them and the product has gone on selling itself in an endless cycle as borders changed, polders were created, islands disappeared through storms at sea and the consumer, student, businessman or passionate traveller needed a more up-to-date map. And for all these different consumers innumerable different sorts of atlases have been published by just as many specialised publishing houses.

It seems nowadays there’s only one ‘publisher’ left: Google. Google Earth is the name of the programme on everybody’s lips and desktops. And the beautiful thing about it: this portrayal of our Earth is more realistic than ever before, although of course it’s still a representation. Google Earth’s Plus, Pro and Enterprise versions are sold to companies. The same companies are willing to pay Google Earth for a link on its digital maps, and government organisations are also allowing their data to be included in these digital maps, according to Chikai Ohazama, product manager for Google Earth, interviewed by contributing editor Arie Duindam in this edition of GIM International.

So it’s not only consumers who are dreaming again, inspired by satellite pictures of earlier visited beach resorts in, let’s say, Italy, California or New Zealand, or are gazing in awe at their own back garden and perhaps, or perhaps not (!) at their car in the driveway. Penetration of the business-to-business market moves fast too. Those professionals who thought Google Earth would remain a play-toy for computer freaks have already been proved wrong.

This development implies some questions for the near future of the business. Is it a good thing that there is, seemingly, no competition, at least in the consumer field? Is Google Earth a danger to the business? Or will it cause an upswing in developments that are already hardly standing still? I do hope the latter proves the case; it will make the geomatics business even more exciting than it already is. And it will drive the price of old atlases up even further!