New markets will open as geoprocessing enters mainstream IT. The following discussion highlights the expanding opportunities in consumer, business and government markets.

Consumers / Small Businesses / Web Portals / Medium-Large Businesses / Governments

Consumers

The geospatial industry has flirted with the idea of mass consumption of its products and services by the consumer markets. But there are few success stories. The innovative Delorme Mapping gave us PC-based travel software and map data on a CD. Others followed. Then came entrepreneurial MapQuest (with approximately 5 million unique Web visitors per month) and Vicinity with their Web map services that are quickly taking root in consumer markets. These innovators have demonstrated the viability of location-based services in consumer markets.

The Net levels the playing field and increases the variety, breadth and depth of the consumer opportunity space for ubiquitous location services. Add to this the advent of new geospatial data factories that will spawn from the availability of new commercial imagery data sources, flooding the market with new commercial sources of geospatial data, and the consumer market becomes even more viable.

Looking forward a few years, the future of Net computing is less clear, but it is likely that people’s information appliances will include "personal spatial assistance services" that will maintain the individual’s information context and connection (personal logical network) as the individual moves through space, bridging media and modality, mapping electronic locations of devices (addresses) to their physical locations, and using concepts of reach space, co-location, and near-by. As information environments become richer in devices of all sizes, and Internet connections of all capacities, it is clear that Java (and Jini) will play a major role, and that a consumer’s location will be a key parameter in how services are delivered.

Here are some of the ways in which consumer markets can make or are now making use of location-based applications and services:

• E-commerce. Location sensitive GeoJava shopping agents.
• Entertainment. GeoJava tourist – virtual travel– visit places without being there.
• Travel/tourism. GeoJava emergency road services and 911 emergency response systems. Uploadable GeoJava applets for the mobile tourist.
• Personal safety/security. Cell phone or car mayday button. Security monitoring and intrusion response. Special wayfinding for elderly and disabled.

Small Businesses

Small businesses constitute roughly 50% of the Gross Domestic Product for the U.S. They also represent the fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy. As entrepreneurial pods, they are key players in the growth of the new information economy. Always on the look for "big plays" and new distribution channels, they make excellent partners for larger businesses that are normally more risk adverse. They are also a huge market segment that is grossly under-served. But the Net is changing that.

Nearly 70% of all small businesses are on the Net today. Small businesses have a voracious appetite for Web innovations. Many are risk takers that will jump quickly on the latest technology or service advantage to shave operating costs or distinguish their company in the market. Most Web portals see the small business market as their next "big play", with most of the "top ten" of these Web traffic aggregators now having aggressive small business development initiatives underway.

Whereas the Net greatly expands the reach of small businesses, they are still primarily local-oriented in their conduct of business. On the average, roughly 80% of their business is conducted locally. This strong local orientation makes geography more significant in their day-to-day activities.

Here are some of the ways that small businesses can make or are making use of location-based applications and services:

• E-commerce. GeoJava buyers' guides for small businesses, provided by service providers.
• Advertising and marketing. GeoJava-enabled yellow pages populated by value added service enablers, and provided by Web portal service providers.
• Lead generation. GeoJava agents scour the Net for business opportunities.
• Travel. "GeoJava Travel Agents" readily available to assist in finding and booking low cost travel.
• Networking. A small business uses geo-intelligent agents to locate locally available subcontractors for a bid they are preparing.
• Real estate. GeoJava real estate listing services are available for service brokerages, with the data produced by value added service enablers.
• Precision agriculture. GeoJava services provide farmers with bi-weekly crop health and status reports.

Web Portals

Successful penetration of the consumer (and small business markets) – the "mother lode" for the geospatial industry – will require that geospatial supply chains intersect Web portal spaces, where consumer (and small business) traffic is concentrated. It’s only when the industry penetrates these prime distribution channels that the industry can claim success in achieving its goal of ubiquitous location-based applications and services.

The major portals to the Net (e.g. AOL, Yahoo!, Netscape, Excite, etc.) get the majority of consumer (and small business) Web traffic. It has been interesting to watch these businesses grow, changing their business models several times along the way. This is most remarkable from the standpoint that most of these businesses have been around for only a few years. Yet, they’ve tried it all: free content or services (e.g. email, home page), paid content or service subscriptions, pay-per-use content or services, free content or services, but just "tell me a little about yourself and/or your company", advertising fees, traffic commissions, listing fees, free or leased software, auctions, trading exchanges and e-commerce.

What does the future hold for the Web portal companies? Who really knows? Some think the number of portals will increase dramatically owing to service specialization (market niching). Others believe that this will never happen because the barriers to entry will change, with the cost to get in the game being too rich for most, and that it’s more likely that the leading portals will transform into networks of service channels (look at AOL), with an extensive breadth and depth of services provided by myriad service providers and enablers.

However the portal business world plays out is of little consequence to the geospatial industry, because there are two rather certain business phenomena that the geospatial industry can count on: 1) given the appetites of the portals for new services, there will be no lack of interest in new, innovative location services, and 2) if the industry builds the products and services correctly (standards-based and in accordance with preferred core technologies for distributed computing, i.e., GeoJava Internet Computing Model for Geoprocessing), its supply chains will easily "find the markets" through the maze of top-tier distributors and brokers on the Web.

Medium – Large Businesses

Medium and large businesses are caught up in the spiral of changes taking place in the new information economy. Business processes are in a constant state of flux. Business models that have worked well for the past decade or more are under intense pressure from the changing marketplace. The Net is behind much of the turmoil. Barriers to entry are lower; thus, the playing field is flattened in many markets. The Net allows innovative newcomers to easily enter the field with faster, cheaper and broadly accessible solutions. Large and medium businesses are responding with their own Net strategies. Meanwhile, these enterprises are learning to move faster themselves and also learning how to better manage change -- continuous change.

At the core of most enterprise strategies dealing with the new information economy, are fundamental changes taking place with enterprise business processes and systems. IT managers are on the move around the globe seeking better technology solutions to address the needs of rapidly changing business models and environments. What are they looking for?

1. Core technologies that are broadly supported for rapid development and deployment of new applications – faster to market.
2. Platform-independent technology that works on all systems and devices throughout the enterprise.
3. Investment protection – easily make use of existing assets.
4. A highly flexible, scalable architecture to meet future needs.
5. A dynamic architecture that can easily (autonomously) accept new devices (objects) and respond to the needs of distributed and/or mobile uses.
6. An architecture that will support efficient, streamlined business processes and mission-critical needs, especially real-time, transaction-intensive applications.
7. Net-enablement.

These demanding requirements are being met by new technologies that are rapidly being adopted into IT arsenals, most notable of which is the Java Language and Java Platform. Java 2 is of particular interest because it addresses critical needs in security, performance, extensibility, legacy integration, reporting and graphical user interface support. Add to this Java Platform for the Enterprise (JPE), built by a coalition of vendors, to offer a broad set of mission-critical APIs to meet enterprise needs in the areas of naming, remote invocation, messaging, transaction processing, database access, life-cycle management, etc. Finally, the API getting the most attention in enterprise IT shops is Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB). Like JavaBeans, EJB is component-based, but it reaches down to the enterprise server environment, supporting applications that are transaction-oriented, like transaction monitors, databases, Corba ORBs, Web servers, etc.

One of the best broad market opportunity areas for the geospatial industry is to spatially-enable the enterprise. This is hard to accomplish with monolithic architectures that take great effort to integrate with enterprise systems. On the other hand, this is much easier with Net&Object-Centric geoprocessing solutions that conform with industry standards and core technology approaches. The dominant trend of Java entering the enterprise is clear. Therefore, effective penetration of this market by the geospatial industry mandates GeoJava solutions for the enterprise.

Here are some of the ways in which large-medium businesses can make use or are making use of location-based applications and services:

• E-commerce. A transaction-intensive company’s storefront shows the location of the nearest customer service centers for their products.
• Supply Chains. A large manufacturing company updates their centralized, mainframe-based supply chain management system by adding mid-tier Java Servlets and secure Web applications for its offices, suppliers and distributors scattered around the globe. GeoJava Servlets provide crucial geoprocessing support for supply logistics planning and control.
• Customer Support. Customer service representatives operating from a distributed call center use GeoJava aids to assist customers over the Net and coordinate with field technicians via mobile GeoJava enabled PDAs.
• Enterprise Resource Planning Systems. A company’s distributed decision support capability is crucial to timely and effective operations; GeoJava decision aids offer a new dimension to the decision process.
• Targeted advertising and marketing. A large consumer products firm is getting poor investment returns on their advertising and marketing; they turn to the Net and use geo-intelligent agents to more effectively target their prospects.
• Planning, Operations and Maintenance for spatially-dependent industries like transportation, telecommunications, agriculture, natural resource exploitation, water and power distribution. A field operations support system provided by a systems integrator ties mobile field personnel to the dispatch center; GeoJava objects communicated between the field and center offer descriptive portrayals of field activities.
• Packaging/Shipping/Distribution. Delivery personnel for a shipping company start their work days at the distribution center by downloading GeoJava manifests for the days run.
• Finance/Banking. Investment analysts at a major bank use geo-intelligent agents to scan market databases and report on global market trends
• Insurance. A progressive insurance company moves to integrate spatially-oriented insurability factors into their new dynamic rate determination system.

Governments

Governments, like business enterprises, are facing the brunt of the new information economy, and are forced to adapt with scarce resources. Long a friend of the geoprocessing industry, governments will welcome and support the industry’s efforts to modernize and achieve the goal of ubiquitous geospatial data and geoprocessing. The resulting geospatial infrastructures will save taxpayer dollars and pave the way for a host of new government services.

Here are some of the ways in which governments can make use or are making use of location-based applications and services:

• Emergency management and response. Disaster mobile operations management systems include GeoJava capabilities for real-time decision support and distributed, collaborative relief operations.
• Resource management. A large federal agency with scarce, distributed resources upgrades their management system to allow collaborative resource management tasking on the Web, using GeoJava applets.
• Defense and intelligence. The U.S. army adds modules to their a distributed war gaming system that makes it easier to change geographic simulation spaces using a new high-performance GeoJava appliance.
• Environment Management. Remote spatially-sensitive monitoring devices are incorporated into a monitoring system to assist in time-critical remediation efforts.
• Transportation. GeoJava objects with traffic and weather information are dispatched regularly to mobile units.
• Census. New GeoJava Web census reporting services to the public, government and business are the rave of 2002.
• Mapping. Digital Earth mapping plans are unveiled by the United Nations; a key in the plans is for cooperating governments and enterprises around the globe to use newly emergent standards and technologies produced by the geospatial industry.
• Public Safety. Police field operations support systems use GeoJava objects to offer field personnel critical, real-time decision support and distributed, collaborative operations.
• Municipal Information Services. A progressive municipality offers new Web services to homes and businesses for "Dig Safe"; users receive GeoJava applets with detailed information.
• Education. A new earth studies course is offered globally to demonstrate the viability of distance learning to remote areas.
• Research. Digital Earth research occurring in universities around the globe results in a Digital Earth prototype that reveals hundreds of new applications for spatially-oriented problems.

Consumers / Small Businesses / Web Portals / Medium-Large Businesses / Governments