Okay, everybody calm the hell down. Anyone who thinks that the Esri acquisition of GeoIQ is strange hasn’t been paying attention to two things: 1) the direction that Esri says they want to go and 2) what the GeoIQ platform really is. I would be very surprised if GeoIQ becomes the 2012 version of Atlas GIS. This acquisition/merger makes more sense than may be initially apparent.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eyFiClAzq8]
It’s no secret that I’ve worked with Esri tools for a long time and my recent work with the GeoIQ platform has been well-documented on this blog, including work integrating the two platforms at the API level. Based on what I’ve seen from both companies, here are thoughts on why I think this move makes a lot of sense: