T'was the night before Christmas,
And Santa was frantic,
Toys and Gifts everywhere,
While the elves where up to their usual antics.
The reindeer were not quite ready,
And Rudolph had put on some weight,
Plus, the GPS in-sled display was on the fritz,
But this annual trip just can't wait.
"Oh heavenly days!" Santa decried,
"Without lat/longs and a map,
We'll never find our way,
Unless we can get our programmer to write a 'killer app.'"
When out on the lawn,
The elves were distressed causing colossal consternation,
Snow and mistletoe flew everywhere,
In an a wild conflagration.
When what to everyone's eyes should appear?
But an aluminum encased PDA with a clear screen visor,
Running Pocket PC
With an X-scale Intel® processor?
Ah, the TFT touch sensitive Transflective display, how it twinkled,
The case, ruggedized to cause no harm,
Wow, it was loaded with a GIS-mapping program
And the compact flash slot with a WiFi 802.11b card worked like a charm.
Santa spoke not a word,
And laid out the exact routing,
But the choice between GDT,
Navtech, and Tele Atlas street data was confusing.
He address matched the database of all the good boys and girls,
And arranged his schedule for this momentous flight,
Called his reindeer into position,
And flew off into the night!
We'll use a quickest time algorithm,
To calculate our optimum path,
Wow, with this new PDA,
We'll be home in time for a warm bath!
Alas, my reindeer team,
Away we go to deliver good fortune and fame,
As he whistled and shouted and called them by name...
Now MapInfo, Intergraph, Caliper, and Hitachi,
Come Oracle, HP, Microsoft, and, ESRI.
To be faster than Wal-mart distribution,
That will be our grandest contribution.
So, it's off to the housetops,
His coursers they flew,
With a sleigh full of toys,
And a great looking PDA, too!
But I heard him exclaim,
As he disappeared from sight,
Merry Christmas to all,
And to all, Happy Mapping tonight!