Panel Reopens Debate on Imagery Business Model

摘要

An industry panel organized by Spot Image to discuss how satellites can best be used to monitor climate change and related phenomena accidentally stumbled over the question that Spot officials have sought to answer repeatedly in the company's 23 years of selling satellite imagery: Why not give the raw imagery away free, as is done with U.S. GPS satellite navigation data? Kurt Eckerstrom of ESRI, a large developer of geographic information systems based in Redlands, Calif., said the cost of satellite data is an issue ESRI confronts on a regular basis.