[ka-Map-users] ka-map vs. ArcGIS

[Paul Spencer]

Tim,

I'm not a former ArcGIS user, but I'd have to say that it all depends  
on what you need your solution to do.

ka-Map, MapServer, MapGuide Open Source OpenLayers, MapBuilder,  
etc ... are all very capable open source packages with healthy  
communities, solid code bases, and a variety of consulting firms  
willing and able to support you, but each one has particular  
strengths and weaknesses.  None of them (arguably) could compete with  
ArcGIS for breadth of functionality at this point in time, but  
specific packages will do things better than ArcGIS.  And you have  
the advantage of being able to talk directly with the developers, get  
bugs fixed, get new functionality etc.

Your best bet is to outline what functionality you need and we'll  
point you in the right direction :)

Cheers

Paul

PS if you have the money to buy ArcGIS, you could spend it on getting  
trained in open source technologies or having a complete solution  
developed for you by someone.

On 27-Mar-07, at 6:58 PM, Henderson, Tim - Miami wrote:

> We're considering ka-map as an alternative to ArcGIS Server. The  
> price is certainly right and it's very impressive what it can do  
> right out of the box. But some here say, well, if we have a chance  
> to buy ArcGIS we should do that, and play with ka-map in our spare  
> time, because it's so expensive that if ka-map fails to do what we  
> need, we'll never get the money again to go back to ArcGIS. Any  
> thought out there from former ArcGIS folks? Am I crazy to think it  
> can do everything?
> Tim Henderson
>
> _______________________________________________
> ka-Map-users mailing list
> ka-Map-users at lists.maptools.org
> http://lists.maptools.org/mailman/listinfo/ka-map-users

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|Paul Spencer                          pspencer at dmsolutions.ca    |
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|Chief Technology Officer                                         |
|DM Solutions Group Inc                http://www.dmsolutions.ca/ |
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