First word of warning, I believe this is a stackoverflow rather than programmers question, Mods feel free to move it if i’m wrong.
The company I am at is looking to create GIS solutions, which could be based on desktops, mobile(WM/android/etc) or the web. This is a vague management requirement as the targeted markets are not 100% defined so may not be as heavily GIS based as originally expected. I have been looking into the main GIS providers in the UK and would see these are been Esri, Capcorp and MapInfo. I know ESRI and Cadcorp both have full suites covering our requirements in terms of platform devices and also the targeted experience of the development team which is mostly .net framework.
The problem is picking which company to go with based on a SWOT analysis. So the question I have is to those who have used, one or all systems. And what are the advantages, weaknesses, strengths and opportunities. I have been reading up on them, which is great, but I want to get a feel from those that have used them in the development and business processes.
My feeling is as with many key bits of software they start to merge and cover the same functionality, making competitor products hard to differentiate. I have only had a small chance to use ESRI and found it slow and verbose to program in, compared to a Cadcorp demonstration I was at which also showed it could import almost any time of map data natively. My concerns with Cadcorp are yearly SDK prices but I believe ESRI ARCGIS also has SDK costs. I am also aware that Esri is dominate in the defence sector from prior work experience, but this is not a market we are targeting. As to MapInfo I have no knowledge about the product other than its initial costs are low but upgrades & addons come at a high cost.
Can anyone give me a rundown of key points of these GIS providers, and feel free to includes others I have no listed.
Edit
I am not looking for a recommendation for software to buy, has been be obtained from marketing information. I am seeking feedback from users who have experience with GIS software to share their knowledge about them, and thus bringing out the detail tha is otherwise unknown.
This is probably relatedable to the C# vs Java questions – https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/51887/java-vs-c-productivity-perspective/51889#51889
Edit
Moved to GIS Wiki – https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/6671/why-do-you-use-arcgis
Also added vote to close this topic.
Don’t go with any company that will lock you into its “solutions” so that the solution becomes the problem. Find an Open Solution and you wont get locked in. Head over to http://www.osgeo.org and see the solutions supported there.