Your SpotOn the IBM Cognos Edge

In the better late than never category, I'm finally getting around to sharing impressions from from the Esri booth at last week's IBM IOD event in Las Vegas.

Overall it was an incredible event for us, and we sincerely hope it was the same for the many who dropped by our booth. The conference fell hot on the heels of Esri's announcement concerning the acquisition of SpotOn, so naturally many who stopped by to see us were curious about that. It was extremely gratifying to experience the overwhelmingly positive response from our customers about this announcement. Without exception, the many SpotOn customers who stopped by were very excited about the prospects of a continued and strengthened relationship with Esri.

The other big news for us at the conference was the winning of not one but two awards, both of which were on prominent display. First, SpotOn won an ISV Achievement Award, which means we'll need an expanded award case as we add this to the 2009 Global ISV Technology Partner of the Year award and the 2009 IBM CTO Innovation Award. Second, Esri won a Global Technology Alliance Excellence Award.

The other very interesting thing I noted was the sheer volume of business analysts and managers who are beginning to think about spatial analysis and location intelligence. A lot of people who dropped by are actively seeking it. They watched our demonstrations of Esri maps integrated with IBM Cognos BI, and stood by saying things like "oh wow... oh wow...". One attendee actually stopped me in mid-demo, stating "OK - you've sold me. Just tell me how much it costs." It's kind of a "you have to see it to believe it" thing. But once anyone accustomed to seeing data in an IBM Cognos report sees the information to be gleaned by adding powerful map integration, it's a real eye opener. After all, location is one of the foundational dimensions in any BI application. By the way, almost all of the demos that we showed at IOD are now posted on our Web site, accessible from the product demos page.

On a personal note, it was absolutely fantastic for me to see firsthand some of the work our customers have done with SpotOn Vantage Maps. I'm generally sequestered away up here in Ottawa, and while I work with many prospects and customers, I very rarely get to see the end result of their work or their looks of satisfaction as they demonstrate back to us in front of their managers and peers.

Feel free to chime in and share your impressions of the conference.

Until next time,

 - dk