If you had asked me after the 2008 North American conference in May if I would still be waiting to get my hands on Manifold 9.0, or even a sniff of a likely release date by Canada Day 2009 (that’s July 1st), then I would have laughed at you and taken up a bet for a beer or two. Manifold.net has prided itself on the fact that it would issue releases on a regular basis, but it’s over two years since 8.0 came out, which is a long time between releases.
I think we now need an official announcement from Manifold.net about the state of play with this release. Manifold has always said it doesn’t like to announce vaporware and release dates of upgrades are only announced when they are sure that the software is close to its final build. The problem this time around is that they did make the statement of 9.0 being released at the end of the first half of 2009 on their website, which I covered previously. Since they set a precedent with this statement, they should be at least acknowledging that this date has passed and give users some idea of how the development of this release is going.
At present users can only speculate at what is taking so long – I won’t be sharing my myriad of scenarios of the cause of the delay here. Oh alright here’s one – they’ve taken on board the cartography issues we’ve raised and have decided to attend to those items. If you want to comment on how this delay is affecting you I’d be interested to hear your views.
I’ve got to get back to my work using Manifold 8.0, which helps as it really is the greatest GIS in the world, but it would be nice to have some new Manifold toys to play with.
It’s probably me being part of the great unwashed, but I’m quite interested that Manifold is perceived as the best GIS. I’ve perhaps always dismissed it unfairly due to its underwhelming price. Maybe I should give it a fair go, but as it just ‘feels’ open source in sheep’s clothing, is that being too harsh?
Stu
Well it is my opinion that Manifold is the best out there, but that may be a different view from others, especially as it’s dependent on what you need your GIS program to do; if all you want is to display various layers without much data manipulation then ArcGIS is probably the best for its cartographic capabilities – if it’s within your budget. As soon as we start talking about carrying out simple to complex data manipulation, including many of the so-called classic GIS tasks, then Manifold is way ahead on many fronts.
As for the open source comparison Manifold’s GUI is often criticized by non-users or users who haven’t put in some effort to learn the package. I find the GUI simple and efficient compared to ArcGIS’s multitude of dialog boxes and associated clicks. Manifold certainly falls into the category of COTS compared to ArcGIS, AutoCAD Map, etc and is nowhere near as raw as some of the open source software I’ve used.
I’m looking forward to v.9 as well, and agree that it would be nice for Manifold.net to release some sort of statement. It’s too bad that they will write pages and pages bashing ESRI and other software, but are suddenly VERY quiet about their own software. But in any case, after so many bad experiences with premature ESRI products, I’m okay with waiting for a mature release, but just wish there was a little bit of communication. But whatever, it’s a $50 upgrade, so I’m not really entitled to complain.
In response to Stu’s comment, I really encourage you to give Manifold a go. I still use ArcGIS 9.3.1 for about 80% of my tasks (mostly cartography), but am using Manifold more and more, particularly for GIS and database “heavy lifting”. I’m not sure it’s “the best”, but it certainly does do some tasks faster or better or more enjoyable than Arc or other platforms. The 64-bit, multi-threading, and CUDA capabilities alone make it an intriguing choice for many.
Quick story: we have a client who had been trying to perform a huge buffer+erase operation on a state-wide dataset…and it’s a huge state. First off, you need ArcInfo to do an “erase” ($10,000). Second off, the datasets were too big, and ArcGIS ran out of memory and failed to complete the task (after many hours of processing). Even scripting it to run county-by-county failed. Tried it in MapWindow, XTools, and Manifold 32-bit, and all ran out of memory and failed as well. Our client just has ArcView licensing, by the way, so we were doing this on our computers. Finally, I had told the client about the 64-bit capability of Manifold, so they put about $2000 into a 64-bit computer (16gb RAM, 4 cores, etc), and $400 into a Manifold license. The task completed in about 2 HOURS. All this for 1/5 the cost of an ArcInfo license, would could not complete the task anyway. Now they are rabid about Manifold and use it all the time, and feel great about their return on investment (they’ve made that $2400 back multiple times with saved time and increased productivity of the 64-bit).
Anyway, just a little anecdote from the consulting world. Give manifold a try.
Yes, Manifold does neat things. I just not sure if Manifold be in business in 6 months. Maybe 9 not out because Manifold not doing well and letting workers go. No staff, no 9.
Are you sure that ESRI will be there in 2 years?
Will ESRI be there in 2 years?
Yes, I’m pretty sure they will be. I know people who work at ESRI, I know where their regional offices are, I know many users. If ESRI starts laying off people from their regional offices, you bet we’ll all know about it, and can see the storm coming.
Is there any way you can see a storm coming for Manifold? No. Because you know nothing about them. You don’t know any employees, you don’t know anything about revenue, etc. You are in the dark.
This is starting to remind me of Bernie Madoff.
David, don’t be an ESRI troll. Manifold users know better.
Manifold is the real deal. You can’t run Manifold without being blown away by how much you get and the quality of the software.
Manifold doesn’t talk. They produce. ESRI talks and doesn’t produce. They are years behind Manifold on spatial DBMS, CUDA and 64-bit. That tells you a lot right there. Manifold has engineers. ESRI has salesmen.
If you want to pay some sales rep to sit in a regional office you go right ahead. I don’t need to pay some rep to give me excuses why ESRI costs more to do less. I’ll buy online and pay less.
Manifold is doing their thing building the best GIS and not caring about anything else. Thats what they do. They don’t talk about new product. I started with 6 and thats how its been.
At the user meeting in Denver they showed 9. I know a guy who was there and he said 9 was superfast and blew him away by the ambition of what they did. In Denver they said they guessed sometime in July or August unless they decided to add some more. Even with NDA they don’t give you a date.
I heard Dmitri said in Denver the record PR was done for Nvidia outside the 9 product. I think they have something going with Nvidia besides GIS. I don’t see anyplace they say 9 is going to be out in the first half of 2009 so maybe what they said in Denver is what they were planning all along and maybe the first half of 2009 is something else they are doing with Nvidia.
Anytime in 2009 is fine by me for 9. August is two years since 8 and if 9 is as big a change as people say thats about all the faster I want to be changing horses. All I care is they get it right and it comes out reliable like 8, 7x, 7 and 6.5.
Manifold is very useful, but far away from being called the best GIS in the world.
E.g. I am heavily missing custom datum transformation. That is really a drawback. Cartographic capabilities are quite limited as well.
Nevertheless for import/export/processing tasks Manifold is an excellent choice.
Drake, loved your July 16/09 comment.
I wonder if those who don’t think Manifold is best GIS will share with us what is?
There’s no doubt Manifold has some shortcomings, and these may be significant to certain users. Nothing is perfect. But, who can argue with how these great new technologies are being incorporated in a very low-cost product. As long as that approach is followed, this is going to be the main tool of work in my GIS world.
October 8, 2009, where is version 9.0?