6 ms·

I will be switching. I quite like the Google Maps API but in my company we're just not able to pay for things with credit cards or in fact to pay for anything

I will be switching. I quite like the Google Maps API but in my company we're just not able to pay for things with credit cards or in fact to pay for anything we don't know the cost of up-front (i.e. variable billing). We'll happily and routinely pay hundreds of millions to suppliers so long as we have a contract, of course. This is no doubt more of an indictment of my employer's internal processes and policies rather than Google, but it does mean that the "standard" maps platform I built will have to be re-written to use another source of tile data etc. But it does seem like this means I have some re-work to do :-(

robin_reala 15y ago
Is that not what Google Maps Premier is for? http://www.google.com/enterprise/earthmaps/maps.html http://www.google.com/enterprise/earthmaps/maps.html
- arctangent 15y ago
  I imagine so - I've already requested info. It will take my company literally months to push through a contract for something like this. Google will be required to tender, alongside other comparable services. I just don't see that happening...
  - v01 15y ago
    If your company is going to consume large volumes of mapcalls you will definitely need the tiered pricing which they do offer per client basis. It's possible to get 50% discounts of the $4 price (if you do more that 100,000,000 per year)
    - arctangent 15y ago
      The main problem is that my company (an executive agency of the UK government, effectively) can't enter into this kind of financial agreement easily, precisely because we have such a huge budget (numbered in the billions). Any contract we sign needs to be for a fixed price, rather than a variable amount. And amounts above a certain limit need to go out to competitive tender, which takes a long time. (I'm not sure Google or the other players in this space would even bother to tender anyway.) So the only option remaining is to rebuild the mapping solution using another technology to ensure continuity of service.
      - robin_reala 15y ago
        Well, if you’re playing in this big a space you could always run your own mapping server using OSM tiles. Of course, GIS guys in my experience tend to be extremely parochial and you might have difficulty in pushing that approach :/
        v01 15y ago
        Saying "you could always" for something like this doesn't make any sense. To undertake creation of a mapping service with no/little expertise and if the main constraint is approval timeline doesn't even seem like an option.
      - v01 15y ago
        If it wasn't clear I meant 100mil requests, not $$$. The pricing is fixed for a tier plan. This is no different than deciding which license to acquire for a service. Do you have any insight into how large the volume of your map requests is?
        arctangent 15y ago
        No, it's a platform I've built for multiple teams within my organisation. So far I have just two instances, but there's a chance that several of them may wish to show geographic information about the availability of healthcare services within the UK, so then numbers could get big very quickly.
      - jrmg 15y ago
        Surely that can't be literally true. How do you buy consumables? Surely you don't tender for contracts to provide a fixed amount of coffee or paperclips per year, choose one provider, then the amount provided just has to suffice no matter if it's too big or small? Presuming you don't, perhaps you could find a way to get your superiors to think of things like map requests as akin to coffee or paperclips rather than a service or a piece of boxed software.

robin_reala 15y ago

Is that not what Google Maps Premier is for? http://www.google.com/enterprise/earthmaps/maps.html http://www.google.com/enterprise/earthmaps/maps.html

arctangent 15y ago
I imagine so - I've already requested info. It will take my company literally months to push through a contract for something like this. Google will be required to tender, alongside other comparable services. I just don't see that happening...
- v01 15y ago
  If your company is going to consume large volumes of mapcalls you will definitely need the tiered pricing which they do offer per client basis. It's possible to get 50% discounts of the $4 price (if you do more that 100,000,000 per year)
  - arctangent 15y ago
    The main problem is that my company (an executive agency of the UK government, effectively) can't enter into this kind of financial agreement easily, precisely because we have such a huge budget (numbered in the billions). Any contract we sign needs to be for a fixed price, rather than a variable amount. And amounts above a certain limit need to go out to competitive tender, which takes a long time. (I'm not sure Google or the other players in this space would even bother to tender anyway.) So the only option remaining is to rebuild the mapping solution using another technology to ensure continuity of service.
    - robin_reala 15y ago
      Well, if you’re playing in this big a space you could always run your own mapping server using OSM tiles. Of course, GIS guys in my experience tend to be extremely parochial and you might have difficulty in pushing that approach :/
      - v01 15y ago
        Saying "you could always" for something like this doesn't make any sense. To undertake creation of a mapping service with no/little expertise and if the main constraint is approval timeline doesn't even seem like an option.
    - v01 15y ago
      If it wasn't clear I meant 100mil requests, not $$$. The pricing is fixed for a tier plan. This is no different than deciding which license to acquire for a service. Do you have any insight into how large the volume of your map requests is?
      - arctangent 15y ago
        No, it's a platform I've built for multiple teams within my organisation. So far I have just two instances, but there's a chance that several of them may wish to show geographic information about the availability of healthcare services within the UK, so then numbers could get big very quickly.
    - jrmg 15y ago
      Surely that can't be literally true. How do you buy consumables? Surely you don't tender for contracts to provide a fixed amount of coffee or paperclips per year, choose one provider, then the amount provided just has to suffice no matter if it's too big or small? Presuming you don't, perhaps you could find a way to get your superiors to think of things like map requests as akin to coffee or paperclips rather than a service or a piece of boxed software.