Yesterday I attended the regular fall meeting of the New Jersey Geospatial Forum (NJGF), held at the Riverview Complex in Trenton, NewJersey.  This post will not attempt tosummarize the entire meeting (maybe another post at a later time), but willonly address one issue that jumped out at me: Google is now a player in the NewJersey GIS arena.

Google mapping technology was referenced throughout themeeting by several speakers, in different contexts.  It was “Google Maps, Google Earth, Googleplatform…”

One speaker – Roger Keren, Director of GeographicInformation Systems, New Jersey Highlands Council – presented “UtilizingWeb Based Interactive Mapping Applications for Public Participation” – a web mapping application developed on theGoogle Maps platform.  Another – JanelBisacquino, GIS Specialist and Systems Administrator forthe Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association – spoke about the globalreach of Google mapping technology and the responsibility of GIS Professionals.

FWIW, it appears that Google has clearly established itselfas THE player in the GIS end users’ market space, among the plethora of othercandidates (I wrote about this issue here in July 2006, and here in April 2005).

What is ESRI doing about that?  According to a post at the All Points Blog, “ESRI enables EPA/Microsoft Virtual Earth Deal”.  If I read this correctly, ESRI is throwingits muscle behind Microsoft in its battle with Google, perhaps even abandoningits (ESRI's) effort to conquer single-handedly the end-user/web-based GIS marketsegment.

Interesting.  I couldbe wrong, of course…