jborgion,
Thank you for your insight. If you were a politician I would gladly vote for you, no pun intended.
I admit my last post was written out of frustration on the day I realized that the services, which were provided free for years, now REQUIRE an online subscription. For some reason that didn't sit well with me. I haven't had to use the service for myself during the past year.
Although the service pak in question came out in October, a detailed explanation of the changes in their policy for geocoding was, as far as I could tell, not released until December of the same year in a manner that left many users in the dark until they happened to tripped over the issue. One such example on this forum occurred during a workshop. I'll admit, the individual in question should have tested everything prior to the workshop, however in their defense, its easy to take for granted that what has worked will continue to do so as it has in the past. Now that I said that, it doesn't sound too logical when dealing with software, etc...
Anyways, the major problem I have is that not all entities out there can afford the extra cost. The software alone is costly enough. According to esri staff, the current US Address Locator has the same accuracy as the new World service when using the street address method. I understand that in theory they will eventually move towards a rooftop solution, which is more than worth the extra cost. However, until they do, charging a fee for something that was once free seems fundamentally wrong when they could have broken it into two separate plans, one traditional service for free with only the street line based data and one premium service for fee that would include all the new bells and whistles.
I agree that ESRI's service is most likely the most reliable one out there, this is not in question. However for the entity I am currently working for, ESRI's service is not accurate enough and is only part of the equation. We currently use their World service to get a best approximate location, then manually geocode the address using pre-existing photos and Google Street View. The finished product places the dot on the house exact house in question. IF given the choice of which end product I would like the local EMS services to use to respond to my house, I wouldn't think twice. The last thing I want is for them to respond 3 houses down the street, which is were ESRI's current service places it...
But what a business does with or without the service is not my argument, nor the point of my concern.
I have used ESRI software since ArcView 3 and have pitched their solutions to many large entities who could afford it, including international ones. My concern is over all the little guys out there that either cannot afford the software or can just barely do so. I find myself pointing more and more people to open source solutions. ESRI always seems to be on the edge of opening up to a larger pool of potential users and then for what ever reason steps back and places yet another barrier in the way for small businesses.
Okay, at this point I am rambling on. Enough said. Thanks for your service...
