Manifold and Big Toys Syndrome
The recent spate of comments on James Fee’s weblog about Manifold has once again highlighted one of the ongoing afflictions of the GIS community. Nobody mentioned business value or ROI. It was all about the size of the toys.
Disclosure: I have a Manifold 7 licence, and have been an occasional Manifold user since version 5.0 (I think). However, most of my work is for clients who are ESRI shops where I am also an occasional user of ArcGIS Desktop.
Sean Gillies has astutely derived Godwin’s Law for Geospatial:
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a mention of Manifold approaches one.
In my experience, Sean’s new law is pretty accurate. I’ll also admit to being guilty of invoking this law (for which, Your Honour, I have no remorse). Yet, almost every time Manifold is mentioned in a comment to a blog post the insults and put downs begin.
Let’s park the negativity for a moment and look at why Manifold gets mentioned. People bring up Manifold because, in their business context, it:
- Gets the job done, and
- It is cost effective.
From the point of view of the person making the comment Manifold offers value for money.
Word of mouth is how Manifold is marketed (mostly, I’ll get to the Manifold website next). Someone who actually uses Manifold suggests to someone else that they should give Manifold a try. People get value from it, they tell others, the cycle continues.
Now, before I get back to the negativity I have to deal with the Manifold website. There is no doubt whatsoever that some of the language used, and claims made, on the website are inappropriate. I’m not interested in claims based on the statement that other “legacy GIS” applications are crap. I want facts that show me why Manifold’s approach is better.
Quite frankly, parts of the Manifold website are a huge blight on the product and its users, and it needs to be fixed. Even though I like their product I feel less inclined to spread the word because of the website. That harms their word of mouth marketing, and feeds the trolls.
That said, it is marketing. Other companies can be just as guilty by what their marketing doesn’t tell you. Either way you have to rely on your bullshit filter to remove the noise, read between the lines, and then spend the time to thoroughly evaluate the product. The marketing may tell you something about the company, but the point is that the marketing is not the product.
So, back to the negativity. Most of the logic used in the negative comments can be explained by why Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) is stupid. The usual cases are, paraphrasing:
- Manifold is cheap therefore it must be a useless toy.
- The Manifold website makes outrageous claims, you like the product, therefore you are making outrageous claims about the product.
- The Manifold user interface isn’t a copy of ArcGIS so it’ll never succeed.
- They don’t have a free demo so I can’t afford to evaluate it.
Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t feed the trolls. But, sadly, informed debate and an appreciation for the scope of the GIS community is often lacking in some blog comments where Manifold is mentioned.
After stirring the pot a little, James Fee asked, so what did we learn? Here are my sweeping generalisations:
- There is an inverse correlation between the use of big ticket GIS software and having hands on experience with Manifold (the product). Yet, people who have never used the product feel compelled to comment on it.
- People who work with “enterprise GIS” often have little appreciation for how GIS is used elsewhere in the wider GIS community. They think that since they need the rolls royce solution that nothing else is suitable for any GIS task.
- Users of big ticket GIS software
arefeel threatened by the possibility that a product that costs about 10% of what’s on their desktop could have roughly equivalent functionality.
Seriously now people, as a community we can do better. This is not about whose shiny toys are the biggest in terms of:
- market share,
- dollar cost,
- feature list, or
- freedom of use (open source).
It’s about providing value to the user in their specific business context. If a full ESRI suite does the job and provides ROI then that’s great. If Manifold does the same that’s cool. If open source software provides the value that’s fantastic. If a consultancy that makes money by building ESRI solutions or open source solutions then good on ‘em, provided their customers are getting ROI.
[tags]gis, manifold, roi[/tags]
Mr Minton — 29 August 2006, 10:38
I'll add a comment in regards to 'what did we learn?'.
..inverse correlation between the use of big ticket GIS software and having hands on experience with Manifold
I agree with you on this. People often feel compelled to comment on products when their only exposure is the website. If manifolds case this generates a lot of negative commentary.
They (enterprise GIS users) think that since they need the rolls royce solution that nothing else is suitable for any GIS task..
This just isn't the case. I know there is always one in every crowd, but the most knowledgeable people I know in regards to GIS work everyday with a large enterprise GIS setup. They are always open to new ideas, new tech, new software. That being said while the people themselves are very open and knowledgably the systems in which they have to operate are not. 3 very large impediments to change in any enterprise system (GIS or otherwise) are workflows, training & support. Anything requiring significant changes to those items becomes very , very expensive. The cost of the software becomes rather insignificant in comparison
Mr. Minton: Strange because I see the opposite of what see in regards to data. I really don't think that most GIS professionals care what product you use to create / maintain your data. Truth be told the only things that matter to most of us in regards to data are accuracy / precision, licensing, metadata & delivery. The product you use will only impact the 'delivery' mechanism. In most cases simpler is better and therefore almost all applications can exchange data in one fashion or another. GIS users on the other hand seem much more tied to the application they use (often because that is all the training they have every had). A different format or process often throws them for a loop and therefore if your data product doesn't work easily with their application and if it doesn't line up with their data perfectly (regardless of how questionable it may be) it is quickly dis-regarded.
Cam W. — 29 August 2006, 12:15
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I agree with you about the Manifold website and Dimitri's typical public posts. I see where you are going with the North Korea analogy, but equating Manifold to North Korea is just a tad over the top (and not unlike the language that Dimitri is accused of using). Let's keep things in perspective. :-)
Wrt your comments on about enterprise GIS users, my statement was probably too harsh. There are a lot of experienced and switched on GIS people out there. There are also a lot of GIS people who have no interest in learning about other products, or learning about the full capabilities of the products they actually have.
Your point about total cost of ownership is spot on, but again it comes back to business context. I doubt Manifold are expecting enterprise ESRI shops to toss out all their ESRI kit and replace it with Manifold (although, I have seen this done with Manifold and Oracle Spatial).
Mr Minton should be judged on the quality of his product for its intended purpose, but it sounds like he's not taken seriously in the GIS community because he doesn't use a brand name GIS. I can easily see how that could happen, but it shouldn't.
Andrew
Andrew Hallam — 29 August 2006, 18:56
And since I wrestled in High School « Steve’s Little world — 29 August 2006, 20:36
I can't imagine any enterprise level GIS based on Manifold / Oracle Spatial. Not because the product isn't up to the task, but because of the lack of support and training for support personal. I've mentioned this in another post at James's blog, but how many people do you think you could find with enterpise experience with Manifold? I bet you could count them on one hand. Heck even on the back end finding people with experience in Oracle Spatial is tough. ESRI, MapInfo, AutoDesk you wouldn't have a problem and you have a solid company that will stand behind it's product.
If we can all take one thing from Mr. Minton's experience it's that only a minority really care about the tools used to create the data. Keep up the good work.
Cam W. — 30 August 2006, 00:34
Just wanted to reply to the second part of your last comment.
Sure, it can be hard to find good people with the right skills. However, I take issue with blanket statements suggesting that if you have a big GIS vendor behind your chosen product that you won't have a problem. It should increase your chance of getting good support, but in my experience it's not that simple.
The quality of support depends on both 1) the person asking for the support, and 2) the person providing the support. Who you talk to can make a world of difference.
Support from a vendor in the US might be relatively consistent across the country (comments I've seen suggest not). Outside the US it gets more interesting. The local representatives of some of the major vendors are branded franchises. Some of those companies are quite small, and they have their own business constraints and profit requirements. This has been known to affect quality of support.
As always in GIS, it comes back to people and data.
Andrew
Andrew Hallam — 3 September 2006, 18:20