Moving from ArcGIS Server to Google Maps API

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Det synes mærkeligt at droppe en 100% professionelt funderet platform til fordel for en neogeografisk ditto ... Men lad os se det i øjnene - kun meget få af os har brug for hele pakken og at droppe funktionalitet til fordel for anvendelighed gør beslutningen om at skifte knap så hård ...

/Sik

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Moving from pro to neo seems like an odd thing to do but over time we will see more and more like this ... Let's face it - very few needs all the tools in the box and giving away functionality in favour of usability makes the decision hard not to follow ...

/Sik

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Why?
Do I have anything against an ArcGIS Server solution? Not at all. ArcGIS Server still takes up a lot of room in my tool chest. I just wanted to freshen up the look and feel of a stale application and take a deep dive into the ever-changing API v3.

Benefits
Let Google handle the base map and related traffic. Forget scheduling a map caching job to run for hours (and hours, and hours) every week.

Users are comfortable with Google Maps. Web mapping trends show Google Mapscontinues to catch (surely have surpassed by now) MapQuest.

The Google Maps API is powerful and has an active community developing applications with it. Got a question? Send it to the group and you'll get replies within hours, maybe minutes.

Disadvantages

The biggest downer that I see is that you lose complete control over your base map. Sure Google lets your report a problem but there is no guarantee when, or even if, they'll get around to fixing it. Luckily the Street View crew made it around to a good third or so of Union County so our base map isn't in bad shape.

With Google there's always a chance of advertisements popping in at some point in the future. Personally, I have no problem with spatially relevant advertising. That's the price we pay for someone hosting and updating your web map services. Although, end users might not like the idea of an ad for Jim's Tire and Lube appearing near their parcel ownership information. [...]

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Read more: http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=3487

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