Podcast: The Free Business Model and Geospatial

By Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
August 18, 2009

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How do you benefit from giving technology away? This week we look at a trend - all sorts of things (data, technology and Web services) are being offered for free across the technology landscape. It's happening in geospatial too. So, here's today's question: How will companies' free offerings compete with one another?

Show Notes

ArcGIS Web Mapping APIs provide organizations with the tools necessary to create visually rich, cross-browser, and cross-platform GIS Web applications. The ArcGIS Web Mapping APIs are free for noncommercial use. You can learn more about the ArcGIS Web Mapping APIs for Flex, Javascript, and Silverlight and how to access them at www.esri.com/mappingapis.

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Free (#1) by Gene Roe, MPN Components
Date: August 23, 2009 15:31 PM

Thanks for the tip on Free. Although I can certainly appreciate the depth of thought that has gone into this I could not disagree more. It reminds me of the "dot-com bubble" where the leaders of the movement were relying on the repeal of the basic laws of economics. We know where that ended up.

The reason that certain things are becoming free on the Internet is because they have zero value. The Internet is too non-deterministic in design to support real commerce for many traditional goods and services. Add to this the multiple sources and competition in many markets and you end up with the price being driven so low that it is impossible to monetize the transaction, so it might as well be free.

As far as data becoming free, once again I totally disagree. The only data that is free is data that has become a commodity. Data with real value, such as satellite data and project scale data is not free, and it never will be.

The laws of economics are not going to be repealed, regardless of whether something is digital or not.

Free education business model (#2) by David DiBiase, Penn State University
Date: September 4, 2009 13:28 PM

"How do you benefit from giving [your stuff] away?" While doing research for an upcoming book on GIS teaching, I posed that question to Ulrik Martensson of the Lund University GIS Centre in Sweden. Ulrik and his colleagues offer an online masters degree in GIS for free. That's right, zero tuition. As you might expect the Lund program is popular - Ulrik reports that 766 students have been admitted to the masters program since 2004, with 1,789 more enrolling in individual courses. The 2,555 total active students participate online from ninety-one countries.

Ulrik reports that the taxpayer support his program receives through the Swedish national government is really only sufficient to supervise about 50 students. However, he and his colleagues accept many more because they're committed to "capacity building of GIS in developing countries." The primary benefit to his program and institution, Ulrik reports, is to "place Lund University on the map." And so they have!

Higher education institutions in the U.S. don't have the public support to offer free education. However, my institution (Penn State) does provide free access to much of the courseware we've created for our online Master of GIS degree program. Why give our stuff away? Because in an increasingly competitive higher education market, rational adult students will choose providers whose courseware is open for inspection and is of the highest quality. Besides, how can it hurt to share these resources with others who can't afford our tuition or who don't need a degree?

Full disclosure department: Directions executive editor Adena Schutzberg is also a part-time member of Penn State's graduate faculty and teaches in our online MGIS program. Adena has generously volunteered to include her courseware in our open educational resources initiative. You can find her course - GEOG 860: Comparative GIS - at http://open.ems.psu.edu and at http://www.oercommons.org

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