The recent GeoDesign Summit, with its focus on geodesign tools, again highlights the issue of GIS-CAD (and now -BIM) integration. I have been partial to this issue for over seventeen years, since my days as an ESRI-authorized ArcCAD instructor. I continue to be partial to (and write about) this issue through my daily encounters with users who need to run both GIS and CAD systems and somehow keep them in sync. But this "simple" task looks more Sisyphean than ever.

What seems to be the problem? Could it be that vendors such as Autodesk do not care about bridging the gap? A post on the All Points Blog and the following comments suggest that this might be the case.

Excerpt from commenter Archie Belaney’s comment:

"For those who don't remember, ADSK tried to go nose-to-nose with ESRI's vast army of Redlandians in the late 90's. ESRI slowed the pace and gave away software to almost every S&L planning and zoning organization who wanted it. After a couple years ADSK realized the competition was costing too much to succeed. So they took a hard look at the market size and velocity of the space back then, and took a walk. Been chuckling all the way to the bank ever since."

Read the full APB post *and* the comments.