Is GIS Moving to the Cloud and Becoming IT?

The ARC Advisory Group has conducted research on the GIS market to conclude that GIS technology, which was once considered highly specialised, is now moving into the realm of mainstream Information Technology (IT).

One indicator of this trend is that most of the GIS software providers now offer web-enabling tools allowing their GIS software to be hosted in the cloud. With cloud-based GIS solutions, users and a broad variety of other systems can easily access real-time geographic data anytime, anywhere for analysis and visualisation.

“With everything heading toward the Cloud – from documents, images, contacts, calendars, presentations, databases, and even advanced analytics – the shift of GIS toward the Cloud seems logical and correct,” according to Rajkumar Paira, Senior Analyst at ARC Advisory Group and key author of ARC’s Geographic Information System Global Market Research report. “Most leading GIS vendors have either already developed or are at least thinking about developing cloud-based GIS solutions, since these are beginning to gain significant traction within the overall market.”