tailieunhanh - Versioning of Information Goods and the Commercial Marketing of Geographic Information Services

Individuals and businesses desire a certain quality from a GI service for which they are willing to pay a certain amount of money. If that GI service fails to meet the expectations in terms of quality and price, the service requestor is likely to patronize another provider. The availability of gradually differentiated quality versions of a GI service offered by a provider as a GI service product line enforces the user to self-select the price-quality combination that satisfies her or his needs. By self- selection each user also approves the chosen GI service version as fit for use, and simultaneously. | 10th EC GI GIS Workshop ESDI State of the Art Warsaw Poland 23-25 June 2004 Versioning of Information Goods and the Commercial Marketing of Geographic Information Services Adam Sliwinski Institute for Geoinformatics University of Munster Germany sliwinski@ ABSTRACT Although there is much enthusiasm about the commercial potential of geographic information GI services as the middleware between the provider and requestor of geographic information and geoprocessing resources within spatial data infrastructures economically viable marketing practices remain a rare case. This paper outlines the relevance of versioning also referred to as vertical differentiation for the marketing of the aforementioned resources. In this context particular attention is paid to the modelling and marketing of price-quality differentiated GI service versions. KEYWORDS GI service marketing versioning vertical differentiation quality of service INTRODUCTION The usefulness of geographic information and geoprocessing resources is undoubted. With these resources in hand we are able to answer such questions like Where is this What is there or How do we get from here to there We are used to consult cartographic maps and navigation systems when we are engaged in sightseeing tours vehicle routing or any other kind of human way finding. Consequently geographic information and geoprocessing resources can be claimed to have economic value. In the international geographic information community one of the contemporary challenges is to develop and deploy distributed technology solutions that provide means for accessing exploring and utilizing distributed geographic information and geoprocessing resources over a communication network like the Internet anywhere anytime and with any device. Today the scientific research and industry development put special emphasis on interoperable geographic information services henceforth referred to as GI services. The proceeding diffusion of GI services - .