This is the first part of Bill Emison’s coverage of the recent myWorld Meetup, this installment focuses on the myWorld solution and next week will recap the event and dig into a variety of use cases.

It just so happened that Ubisense, an “enterprise location intelligence solutions“ firm headquartered in Cambridge, UK, recently held their myWorld Meetup at the ART, just down the street from Colorado’s State Capitol. Many years ago, during my initial professional job in Denver with the (now defunct) Convergent Group, I was fortunate to work with several current members of the Ubisense team. Because of this experience, my objective was to learn about their software solutions, hear from their telecom and utility clients, and catch-up with some old friends.

Overall, I was blown away with the myWorld solution, which is strictly focused on user requirements to support specific business processes within the telecom and utilities markets. myWorld provides a simple web interface with a small number of user tools, which completely belies its true power – the ability for field workers to access accurate geospatial data, as well as relevant asset information, facility maintenance records, current work orders, and cost estimating tools. What struck me most was its ability to balance traditional mobile GIS functions with corporate business tools, which is an unthinkable concept for most enterprise GIS systems!

Takeaways

• System Architecture
  myWorld’s innovative system architecture allows organizations to more effectively leverage (INTEGRATE!) disparate business systems and their geospatial data (acquisition) investments within an enterprise environment. This results in an efficient and quickly deployable software solution that empowers and optimizes field operations. Furthermore, myWorld can easily manage user roles and quickly roll out new software tools and updates to all users, allowing costly IT resources to focus on system security and reliability.
• Customer Focus
  Throughout this event, it was crystal clear that Ubisense has developed close relationships with their customers, supported by a significant emphasis on their business operations, IT return-on-investment (ROI), and client satisfaction metrics. Once again, the myWorld software solution is unique in that it spans the traditional gap between GIS, field operations and corporate business systems, allowing for improved operational communications and enhanced decision-making capabilities. As the competition within the telecom and utility markets continues to increase, due to corporate mergers and technology innovations, commercial firms that optimize the synergies between their business operations, network assets, and field resources will have a significant competitive advantage going forward.

• Value vs. Pricing
  Without directly addressing this issue of software pricing, Ubisense smartly changed the discussion to focus on the value of their solution to the enterprise. Most refreshing was the lack of discussion involving software implementation costs or software maintenance fees – somewhat outdated concepts in today’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) corporate IT environments. By “bundling” data integration services with a dynamic software solution, Ubisense clients can quickly implement and configure myWorld to meet their business requirements. In addition, the platform can be specifically customized to support unique business processes including proprietary or legacy data systems.
• New Data Capture Sources
  During his talk, Ubisense’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Peter Batty shared his future vision for myWorld with the attendees. Ubisense clearly understands that new 3D reality capture technologies will undoubtedly impact commercial firms, resulting in more updates from the field. Over time, these updates will become increasingly automated, allowing field personnel to focus on system reliability and maintenance issues, rather than on field data updates.

Tune in next week for a full recap of the myWorld Meetup, which demonstrates the full range of what myWorld can offer enterprise users.