RSSMicrosoft Follows Google Into Geospatial Standards Group
By the Betanews Staff | Published October 30, 2007, 6:17 PM
A scant few months after the Google Earth's KML was deemed a best practice by the Open Geospatial Consortium, Microsoft has joined the OGC as a principal member.
The Open Geospatial Consortium consists of 345 companies, government agencies, and universities. Their aim is to build a consensus around the development of the OpenGIS Specification.
In the Spring of 2007, Google submitted its Keyhole Markup Language (KML 2.1) -- the language Google Earth uses -- to the OGC for approval. The language was deemed a best practice, and the OGC has been working to integrate it into the extant Geography Markup Language (GML).
Now, Microsoft has joined the consortium as a Principal Member, to ensure its releases of Virtual Earth and SQL Server 2008 are OpenGIS-compatible.
It seems more and more that where Google makes a move, Microsoft is not far behind. But rivalries aside, the two companies' inclusion in the Consortium illustrates the prevalence and necessity of geospatial information.
"The greatest implication of Microsoft coming into OGC is that [it] is one of the few companies that you can really say has ubiquitous presence," OCG Chairman and CEO David Schell told Government Computer News. This means that Microsoft's ubiquity, in this case, could extend all the way into Google Earth.
Google's stock price just busted the $700.00 mark. They could care less what Microsoft either does or doesn't do. All Microsoft can do is follow Google. They have neither the financial or political clout to stop the Google juggernaut.
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If Google is smart, they would not rule M$ out. M$ still has a desktop monopoly. They still have everyone locked into their proprietary formats and protocols.
They are expanding thorough several avenues to guarantee the future is one locked into M$. The XBox 360 is the centerpiece of that.
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Um, er....
Google sits on top of the desktop as far as most of it's apps and services are concerned. It couldn't care less which OS they are running on.
This is probably the exact reason they've stayed in the web-app arena for so long. They don't have to deal with OS specifics to be cross-platform.
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except when there is an OS they can not run on.
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Name one Gmail doesn't work on. Or Google Apps. OR Google Search.
That was the point.
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