HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Sept. 16, 2002 -- Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions Monday announced the Intergraph Open Interoperability Grant Program, a new international grant program promoting and emphasizing the use of OGC interoperability specifications for accessing and applying geospatial information from a local to a global level.
The announcement coincides with the sixth Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Conference being held this week in Budapest, Hungary.
This broad new initiative, with a value of more than $5.5 million (U.S.), supports the GSDI organization's mission of ready global access to geographic information. The program will emphasize the use worldwide of OpenGIS® Specifications from the geospatial industry standards body, the Open GIS Consortium (OGC).
The grant program actively promotes interoperability and enables organizations using geospatial information to build open Web services and publish their data using Geography Markup Language (GML), thereby allowing easy and open exchange of data.
Participating organizations in the Intergraph grant program will benefit from expanded interoperability and improved communications throughout their enterprise. The program focuses on the development and deployment of compatible spatial data infrastructures based on internationally accepted best practices, and helps bring the GSDI organization's goals for worldwide spatial data sharing closer to reality.
"In an increasingly global community, there is a need to ensure that spatial data infrastructure implementations are available across national boundaries," said Santiago Borrerro, current chair of the GSDI organization. "Intergraph's grant program is a unique vehicle that will encourage organizations to embrace interoperability standards on a global level. This will further the achievement of our GSDI organizational goals and is a welcome initiative for both emerging and developed nations."
As a member of the GSDI organization and a founding and strategic member of the Open GIS Consortium (OGC), Intergraph actively engages in the process of building open standards. The grant program takes a proactive approach to proliferating OGC specification standards around the world.
Mark Reichardt, executive director, OGC Outreach and Adoption Program, expressed support for Intergraph's Open Interoperability Grant Program, stating that "The Consortium appreciates and depends upon vendor members who understand interoperability and are sincere in their desire to provide their customers with freedom of choice. The Intergraph Open Interoperability Grant Program is a wonderful way to introduce organizations to the power of Web-based mapping solutions that work across different vendors' software platforms."
Each grant includes Intergraph's GeoMedia® Professional and GeoMedia WebMap, a Web map server (WMS) adapter kit for GeoMedia WebMap, GML data server, GML export command, maintenance program, Team GeoMedia Subscriber membership, technical support, and membership in the Intergraph GeoSpatial Users Community (IGUC). GeoMedia products and technology, built on the premise of open industry standards, fully promote ease of data sharing within and across organizations.
With an Intergraph grant, an organization can leverage disparate data from multiple sources - regardless of vendor brand, format, or platform - to easily and dynamically publish data in open, industry-standard formats to the Web. This enables them to maximize the reuse of geospatial data, eliminate time-consuming data translation, and reduce integration requirements and associated costs.
At the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure 6 Conference in Budapest, Preetha Pulusani, president of Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions and a member of the OGC board of directors, encourages organizations to apply for 100 grants that will be awarded during the next year.
"Intergraph's commitments to GSDI and OGC and to providing open, extensible geospatial technology for mapping, GIS, and IT professionals were key in our decision to underwrite this grant program," said Pulusani. "New issues arise each day regarding the sharing of data between departments and organizations at local, national, and international levels. Interoperability is the only viable solution for dealing with this situation and improving the critical decision-making process.
"At Intergraph, we are strongly committed to the advancement of open data access and sharing. This new grant program will fully exploit the progress made in OGC interoperability standards and enable organizations to build usable spatial data infrastructures with ready access to information to support varied needs, whether for daily operational purposes or in times of crises."
To read about specific program requirements and to fill out a grant form visit, www.intergraph.com/gis/ogc/interop.asp.
Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions
Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions brings together geospatial and information technology to help customers achieve their business goals. Intergraph serves government agencies and commercial enterprises worldwide with end-to-end geospatial solutions for cartography and map production and enterprisewide mapping and GIS. The company provides superior customer support and services ranging from project implementation to production.
Intergraph Mapping and GIS Solutions is a division of Intergraph Corporation (NASDAQ: INGR), Huntsville, Ala., and does business in more than 60 countries through its wholly owned subsidiaries and global distributor and partner network. For more information, visit www.intergraph.com/imgs.
