GIS market,
cost, and benefits
Field
Practicum 1 (GIS)
Course Code: Geog
445
Credit Hours: 3
URL: http://faculty.uaeu.ac.ae/~myagoub
In 1995 GIS revenues hit $563 million a
13.7% increase compared to 1994. ESRI (number 1 GIS software provider) hits $
162 million revenue and most of its growth (8.5%) is due to PC-based software
sales. Intergraph (number 2) hit $ 129.4 million revenue while MapInfo (number
3) hit $ 37.5 million revenue (GIS
World 1995a).
Although it is difficult to obtain accurate
figures for the size of the GIS market, however, Daratech estimates that in
2000 the worldwide GIS market was $ 6.9 billion, of which $ 1.05 billion was
core software (Longley et al., 2001). A typical GIS cost break down and GIS
benefits allocation are shown in Table 1. Most of the costs and benefits in GIS
are likely to be based on intangibles, and consequently hard to measure
effectively. However, the ratio of costing and benefits may differ from an
organization to other depending on the number of hardware, software (Table 2),
personnel, and quantity of data needed (Table 3).
Table 1: GIS cost break down and benefits
allocation.
|
GIS cost break down |
GIS benefits allocation |
||
|
|
% |
|
% |
|
Data conversion |
51 |
Labor saving |
30 |
|
Personnel and training |
18 |
Strategic benefits |
25 |
|
Hardware and software |
15 |
Asset value |
20 |
|
Application development |
10 |
Growth impact |
15 |
|
External support |
5 |
Update system |
5 |
|
Other |
1 |
Other |
5 |
|
Total |
100 |
|
100 |
Source: United Nation, 1997.
Table 2: Software for GIS: Leading vendor’s products.
|
Vendor: Share Market 1994 |
GIS product |
Product Type |
Price (U$) |
|
•Autodesk www.autodesk.com |
Autodesk World Autodesk MapGuide AutoCAD Map
|
Desktop GIS Web-based GIS CAD mapping
|
$1,995 $9,990 $4,250 |
|
•ESRI (30%) www.esri.com
|
ArcView (AV) Arc/Info AV Business Analyst AV Internet Map Server BusinessMap Pro
|
Desktop GIS Prof./Indus. GIS Business GIS Web GIS Entry business maps |
$1,195 $10,000 $11,995 $10,500 $149
|
|
•Intergraph (24%) www.intergraph.com |
GeoMedia Geomedia Pro Geomedia Web Map Geomedia Network
|
Desktop GIS Prof./Indus. GIS Web-based GIS Networking modules
|
$1,500 $7,500 $10,000 $2,000
|
|
•MapInfo (5.6) www.mapinfo.com |
MapInfo Pro Mapinfo MapXtreme MapXtreme Java MapInfoData Target Pro |
Desktop GIS GIS apps. Server Web-based Server GIS for marketing
|
$1,295 $24,495 $24,495 $695
|
Source: PC Week 1/4/1999.
Table 3: Breakdown of costs (in
$1000s) for two typical client server GIS
implementations.
|
|
10 seats |
100 seats |
||
|
|
$ |
% |
$ |
% |
|
Hardware |
30 |
3.4 |
250 |
8.6 |
|
Software |
25 |
2.8 |
200 |
6.9 |
|
Data |
400 |
44.7 |
450 |
15.5 |
|
Staff |
440 |
49.1 |
2000 |
69.0 |
|
Total |
895 |
100 |
2900 |
100 |
Source: Longley et al.,
2001.
- GIS World, 1995. GIS software revenue
expected to rise. GIS World Agust: 22.
- Longley, P. A., M. F. Goodchild, D. J.
Maguire, and D. W. Rihnd, 2001.Geographic information systems and science. New York: John Wiley
and Sons, Inc.
- United Nation, 1997.Geographic Information
Systems for Power Planning. New
York: United Nation Publication.