[7952]

Google Earth has never been a serious competitor for GIS. If they had added more features 5 years ago it may have gained traction.

It is great for viewing and creating small datasets. Viewing larger datasets required a surprising amount of effort in terms of tiling and converting. The tools built into Google Earth were never very good and people were pointed at server products. This was completely at odds with the simple ethos of Google Earth and often lead companies to invest in expensive ESRI products that offered Google Earth support!

Google are concentrating on server products with web interfaces and GE never fit into that. It is fantastic for professional users but Google have no idea how to sell to those kind of people.

[ghshephard]

I am aware of at least approx $500mm company that extensively uses Google Earth/Google Earth Pro for its modeling, analysis, and data presentation needs. In terms of data set sizes, typical sizes range up to approx 3mm-5mm data points per project. The engineers that use GoogleEarthPro also have experience with MapInfo, but frequently chose to use Google Earth, simply because it's easier.

I'm not suggesting that Google Earth will ever replace MapInfo/ArcGIS - but don't underestimate how much of the "lower end" GIS market that GoogleEarth took away from them.

[abruzzi]

Which is sad because ESRI desperately needs some competition. It always feels about 10 years out of date.