Selling the Conceptual and Computational Value of Esri’s ArcGIS Platform

Abstract

At a time when industries are struggling to monetize the diversification of information flows in the digital economy, the transition from a "software as a service" model to a platform takes on crucial importance. Platforms are complex technological infrastructures that host and exchange content, but they are also sites of cultural interaction, consumer-driven business models, and powerful metaphors driving the digital economy. Situating Esri’s ArcGIS platform within the Facebook-era of platform development offers ways of understanding how one of the world’s largest GIS innovation companies and therefore other market dominators deploy popular platform thinking into its business and marketing strategies, while at the same time adoption technological standards that are conducive to both consumers and profit-seeking activities. Under examination are branded appeals to user value and strategies to create the optimal market for platform adoption by making data platform ready. Esri's long-term support of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), an international non-profit organization set to standardize geospatial data is one such social relation discussed. Considered are the democratic promises and practices that metaphorically hide the move towards "platform capitalism," where monopolies of the market structure the use and types of data being produced, distributed and consumed.

The poverty of GIS theory: Continuing the debates around the political economy of GISystems

“…As a “platform,” ArcGIS is meant to enhance the GISystem's communicative function by promising users greater ease of access to spatial tools and data, and by offering the means to share and collaborate with those working outside GIS departments. It is a key moment in the broadening of a GISystem from the analysis and production of spatial information into a more generalized system for creating and capturing value via the control of flows of information and (internal to the system) software development (Beltz Imaoka ). The highly valued skill of “applications programming” discussed in the previous section is standardized within the ArcGIS platform's ecosystem.…”