GeoDataLab announces its new partnership with GeoSolutions and explains the importance of this step in terms of vision and future innovation pathways.
We are pleased to announce our new strategic partnership with GeoSolutions [1], a widely renowned provider in open-source and scalable GIS solutions and the main driving force behind open source products like MapStore, GeoNode, and GeoServer.
That GeoDataLab had decided to follow the pathway of the open-source GIS products is well known to everyone [2]. After all, in the market of GIS software solutions, this approach has gained considerable ground compared to the purely proprietary technologies [3].
Among the values that have been guided us since our foundation, collaboration and team spirit are undoubtedly one of the strongest. Indeed, we firmly believe that networking is an opportunity to grow and develop the ability to respond to market changes faster and more effectively in every IT sector, but even more so in a niche market, like one of GIS-solutions.
The above illustrated has been our starting vision, and we have found out that it perfectly matches the actual one of our newly acquired partners. GeoSolutions, indeed, aims to create a “global network of certified partners of excellence” who – leveraging their technical skills and expertise – want to shape a unique set of next-generation geospatial tools.
As concerns the field of open-source geospatial products, there could not have been for us at GeoDataLab, a better partner than GeoSolutions. GeoServer, GeoNode, MapStore are just some examples of the components developed by the GeoSolutions group that we have utilized in several of our projects, including big ones on a national scale. The experience of our key developers with the mentioned platforms dates back to before the birth of the company itself.
To make more evident the strategic importance of this partnership, here we briefly depict a short sketch of the most renowned components: GeoServer, MapStore, GeoNode.
GeoServer [4] is an open-source server that allows users to publish, share, process and edit geospatial data using open OGC standards. It produces KML, GML, Shapefile, GeoRSS, PDF, GeoJSON, JPEG, GIF, SVG, PNG, and more. In addition, one can edit data via the WFS transactional profile (WFS-T).
MapStore [5], instead, is the WebGIS framework that lets you create, manage and securely share maps and mashups. It can work with different map contents (provided by OpenStreetMap, Bing, or other OGC-compliant servers).
GeoNode [6] puts all the functionalities together, providing a complete GIS platform that relies on GeoServer – for storing, accessing, and editing spatial data – and on MapStore as GUI for interacting with them.
For our part, the GeoDataLab team has now reached a higher level of maturity that makes it capable to fastly develop professional solutions and at the same time carrying out research projects to imagine possible future integrations of the existing products.
The partnership agreements foresee technical, commercial, and marketing collaboration [7].
References
[1] GeoSolutions’ official website
[2] “How we work” from GeoDataLab’s official website
[3] “GIS: presente e futuro” by Chiara Sammarco
[4] GeoServer product page from GeoSolutions’s official website
[5] MapStore product page from GeoSolutions’s official website
[6] Geonode’s official website
[7] “GeoDataLab joins the network of GeoSolutions partners” by Simone Giannecchini
