Is ESRI going Microsoft way with licensing?

Here is a really nice video parody on how Microsoft would have marketed iPod if it were their product (link).

With ArcGIS Server 9.2, ESRI seems to be going completely MS way. They have 3 different editions (Advanced,Standard,Basic) of the product in 2 categories(Enterprise,Workgroup). When we do all the permutations and combinations, it comes to 6 different versions of a single product. Isn’t it overkill.

There has been a lot of discussion in the blogger world on the new licensing evilness. I am really confused. Why could ESRI not make just 2 types of licenses … Enterprise and Strandard. Can you imagine a person purchasing Enterprise license with a Basic Edition? Never, if the user is willing to pay for Enterprise why would they pinch money limiting it to single cpu (oh, is it a single socket or a single core … arghhhh).

For those interested, here is a white paper on ArcGIS Server licensing (link). I am disappointed ESRI.

GIS Podcasts

A colleague pointed me to this website having a bunch of GIS related podcasts. Check them out, I believe listening and watching is much easier than reading.

Networking for an introvert

I am not an introvert, but in the same sentence, would not consider myself an extrovert either. Business Pundit has this nice article about networking for introverts. Here is the link.

Microsoft “Blend”

Microsoft has changed the name of Expression to “Blend”. This is the third name I ‘ve heard of the product, initial being Sparkle, then Expression, now Blend.

Also, Expressions is out of beta now.

ArcGIS Server Team is blogging

Good to see teams inside of ESRI blogging. The blog is located at
http://serverx.esri.com/ESRIBlogs/blogs/arcgisserver/default.aspx