[Reader-list] Microsoft, Geographical Information Systems and the Government of India

[Vivek Narayanan]

Since there are at least a couple of people on this list who are working 
on the democratization / social implications of GIS technology, I was 
wondering if they had any opinions/comment on what it means that 
Microsoft, reigning emperor of proprietary software, is involved in this...?

Thanks,
V

Microsoft to digitise Indian maps

Associated Press

Bangalore, January 12, 2005|18:53 IST

The Government on Wednesday asked software giant
Microsoft to put its vast collection of satellite
images, remote sensing data and other information
about the country's terrain in digital form.

"As the project progresses, citizens of India can
actually get a bird's eye view of the country," said P
Anandan, head of Microsoft Research India, the
company's research center opened at Bangalore, also on
Wednesday.

The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding for
research collaboration. The first project under the
memorandum will be a geographic information system to
make high technology information available to the
public in an easily understandable form, Anandan said
in a statement.

"Comprehensive digitisation of India's terrain can
support relief planning and monitoring in the wake of
natural disasters," he said.

Indian authorities were criticized in the aftermath of
the December tsunami waves that killed more than
10,000 along its southeastern coast, for not being
part of an international coalition to monitor tsunami
threats.

Despite having a well-evolved remote sensing satellite
system, India often fails to warn its people of
natural disasters in time, due to poor infrastructure
for disseminating the information. Anandan also said
the research center opened Wednesday will hire "a
couple of dozen" scientists in 12 months to work on
technologies for emerging software markets such as
India, multilingual systems and other specialties.