Peter Batty has been around the spatial industry for 17 years. He started his career by topping his year at Oxford, which gave him a Masters degree in computer science. He started his working life with a stint at IBM in the GIS field, but he really came to public notice when he was appointed as vice president of technology at Smallworld plc in the UK.
Dick Newell created Smallworld around the novel idea of using an object-oriented database to store spatial data. In doing so, he created the technology for one of the most interesting GIS companies of the last decade.
Smallworld's rise was spectacular. For a while it must have seemed that the company was the centre of the universe, but when General Electric acquired it, it became just another very small cog in a very big machine. It became less interesting to Batty as a result.
Under the terms of the acquisition, he had to spend a year working for GE to ensure a smooth transition. At the end of that period, he set up Ten Sails.
Tell Sails is an investment company - in other words - a pot of money in search of a good idea. The problem is that it turns out to be alarmingly difficult to spot one.
Given the time scales involved, one must necessarily predict the state of the market far ahead. Forecasting market trends is an expansive exercise. It opens one's mind to all sorts of possibilities from left field - even if it is also fraught with error.
On the plus side, however, everyone is interested. Which is why Batty has been on the conference round recently, and how he came to be in Australia. He made a presentation to industry executives at this year's GITA conference in Melbourne, and this is where I met him.
To clear the decks, Batty says the one thing he will not be doing is investing in another GIS platform. Undoubtedly he suffers from the 'been there, done that' syndrome; but more importantly, he says technology has moved on. The possible improvements in a new GIS platform would be marginal at best.
'It's difficult to say that current spatial indexing algorithms are the best possible, but it is fair to say that any possible improvements will not lead to the kind of quantum leap in performance that would make people rush out and buy a new product based on them,' he said.
'There are some serious problems left unsolved in GIS. Decent methodologies for digitising from paper plans is certainly high on the list, but it's probably too late for people to want to invest serious money in this field.'
The next big new thing, Batty believes, will be sentient databases. Essentially, the sentient database is one that is updated as an integral part of doing business. It is always current - always accurate-- because the act of performing some function is an integral part of updating the database.
There are some serious problems left unsolved in GIS ...
There are a host of obvious business reasons why a sentient database would be attractive. Equally, a host of technologies would be required to make it possible.
Some of these, like real time computing, have to do with the way information systems are designed. It would, however, require the application of a lot of new technology to the business of data input to make it happen, as well as the maturation of some technologies that already exist.
Clearly, the web would be an integral part of a sentient database. Equally obvious: data standards will, over the next few years, make the problems of transporting data trivial.
Add cheap and ubiquitous data communications and Batty says we can look forward to a world where the distinction between field and office no longer exists. 'People will expect the same access to data no matter where they are. They will be able to read or update databases as easily in the field as when they are behind their desks in the office.'
Satellite navigation systems such as GPS will continue to evolve towards increased accuracy and ease of use. Put this together with the idea of cheap communications, and tracking becomes an obvious application. In particular, tracking of people, which will become a huge industry over the next 20 years. You will track yourself with personal mapping systems, track your children with small bugs attached to their clothes, track your friends or use it to find mates.
Other uses will be more nefarious. The invasion of privacy will become a huge issue. People will fight to prevent police and other civil servants from tracking them unawares.
Batty's take on all this is that there still exists one very big technology hurdle: location indoors. Engineers are still struggling with techniques to track objects when they are indoors - packages or parcels, people or mobile machines. There are many places where this information would be invaluable, in hospitals, or factories for instance.
Clearly, the web would be an integral part of a sentient database ...
The problem is twofold. Firstly, space-based transmitters have a combination of frequency and power that makes it difficult for their signals to penetrate walls and roofs. Secondly, radio signals with a wavelength short enough to make good positioning tools are prone to reflection off walls and furniture, making reliable positioning very difficult.
Batty says he is currently monitoring a company called Ubisense that may well have cracked this problem using ultra wide band communications.
If so, it may give him a commanding position, once again, at the sharp end of the industry.
Jon Fairall interviewed Peter Batty in Melbourne on 11 August 2004
