>> GOODMAN: My name is Ryan Goodman. I'm the founder of Centigon Solutions. And, with me
today, I have Evan DeLodder, who is our principal Flex architect. And we are a SAP premier partner
and we developed add-on solutions for an enterprise dashboard product called Xcelsius. And we
have developed an add-on called GMaps plug-in, which is our Google integration or Google
maps integration, allowing dashboard developers to build and integrate geographic analysis
within business intelligence dashboards. >> So you chose to use Google maps to bring
this out, can you tell us a little bit about how you came to this technical decision to
use Google maps? >> GOODMAN: The decision to choose Google
maps as our technology for implementing geographic analysis within the business intelligence
space was actually quite easier. Customers ask for intuitive and easy to use mapping
interface for visualizing their business information. And, when we evaluated the landscape, we wanted
to ensure that our that our customers had a very easy and intuitive to use technology,
and the pervasiveness of Google maps made it an obvious choice along with their support
for licensing and pricing for the enterprise. >> DELODDER: One slightly sticky area that
we ran across was interval timing with geocoding request. So, within the application that we
created, this plug-in for, the user is able to find a range of address data to the Google
map component. And for each address in that range, would go out to the geocoder each time
with the Flash API and get the response and plot the marker. We had actually set up a
timer in Flex to manage these request of to the geocoding API and found that what worked
for us internally may have not worked for a client in an actual deployment in the way
marker request being successfully processed. So, what we ended ultimately doing is exposing
the timer interval as an actual user configurable property that they can dial in for the Google
map. And by kind of, you know, taking away the guess work on our side and empowering
them, they're able to choose the best timing interval for their solution, their environment
and their internal infrastructure. >> So this next question is sort of a nice
follow up to the last question, how do you find the performance from the Google maps
API? >> DELODDER: Performance for the Google maps
API inside of Flash is really solid for--if you're just plotting latitude and longitude
values. So, if we have an option in our property management for the Google map where they're
able to select the options you use either at the geocoding service, if there are coding
addresses or, you know, city state value pairs or they can choose the option to use latitude
and longitude values that they provide themselves. So, if they’re providing, you know, hard
coded latitude and longitude values through the program, response is--response times are
negligible and it runs really, really smoothly; very predictable and very fast. The only kind
of performance hit that we run up against is with the geocoding. You know, like I said,
we kind of empower the user by putting the interval timer in their hands. So, performance
kind of, you know, varies based on their set up and their infrastructure, but, with that
said, once the request goes out to the geocoder, it comes back extremely fast. So performance
from the, you know, purely geocoding aspect has been great. It just--all kind of hinges
on the timer interval that, you know, spaces out the requests.
>> How easy was it to get started? And then the next question is how do the maps improve
the user experience? >> DELODDER: Those are really easy to get
started. One of the base points that we really jumped off from was the forum in the online
community that Google's provided. You know, just through the API reference site, we're
able to find easy, clear, concise code examples that we can basically, you know, copy and
paste. And we're starting from the ground up to figure out, you know, how to best handle,
you know, latitude and longitude coding, how to best set up and abstract the way marker
options and how to handle geocoding. So, you know, getting started was a breeze, a ton
of online resources in the Google community. Pamela Fox, who's been speaking a lot today
has provided a lot of guidance on these forums. And also in the Flex world, there are other
developers that have contributed, working examples with source code that you can download.
So, those are pretty easy road for us getting started.
>> What do you see is the future of mapping in geo?
>> So, for the future of mapping in geo, we see it as taking what we're able to do on
the desktop today with business intelligence, which is view business centric geographical
and performance data, taking that over to a mobile device and mobile platform so that
the user can have the same great, intuitive experience in and away from the workplace.
>> Thank you so much.