For various reasons, I can’t attend today’s inaugural FedGeoDay at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC, though I’ll be watching the hashtag with great interest. Jack Flood of Arc2Earth, however, has already posted his slides to SlideShare:
While neither ArcMap nor Arc2Earth are open-source themselves, Jack points out that Arc2Earth acts as a bridge between ArcMap and several geospatial hosting platforms that are built on open-source technology but, also just as important, are successful at making data more openly available. These platforms include CartoDB and MapBox, among many others.
Many people use, and prefer, ArcMap has their desktop cartography and analysis tool. I view Arc2Earth as an enabling technology that allows users to continue to be productive with ArcMap while also allowing them to retain control of how they direct their GIS investments in terms of publishing and hosting their maps and data.
Disclaimer: My company is an Arc2Earth reseller.
