Watching the Telethon
I'm with Paul:
Summary: No matter whether you're building on ESRI or open source, if you are building something complex your staff will have to learn a few new skills. Their prior experience with core concepts like programming and IT will serve them well in both domains, and the learning curve will be no worse either way.
If your tech company doesn't have, or can't learn, the fundamental Javascript, SQL, and Java skills needed to deploy and run OpenLayers, PostGIS, and GeoServer (substitute C# and SharpMap for Java and GeoServer if you must), you'll be passed sooner or later by the companies that do.
Comments
Re: Watching the Telethon
Author: Dave
Yep. Me thinks there may be a shakeout of the traditional GIS consulting industry coming up...Re: Watching the Telethon
Author: Paul Ramsey
Rather *another* shake up coming... I remember when I started the consulting gig here, all the big GIS consultancies in town were built around staffs of mad AML gurus, Arc/INFO data capture gnomes, and cartographic production. All the AML is gone, and the only cartographic shop still standing is adding an application development sideline.