Industry Standards

2007 Pitney Bowes MapInfo Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
MapInfo and the MapInfo logo are registered trademarks of Pitney Bowes MapInfo Corporation.
Industry Standards
Geospatial Standards
MapInfo is involved with numerous standards organizations, engaging in ongoing dialogue and
serving on committees and boards tasked with working toward the ultimate goal of openness
via interoperability.
ISO (International Organization for Standards)
MapInfo follows a number of initiatives at the ISO level. TC 211 and TC 205 are of particular
interest for geospatial. In addition, MapInfo helped to lead ISO efforts for adding spatial to SQL.
FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Committee)
The federal metadata standards and NSDI (National Spatial Data Infrastructure) Clearinghouses
such as the NYS GIS Clearinghouse help potential users to search for and find geospatial
information and its related data effectively. The NSDI was born out of a critical need for an
improved means for finding and sharing geographic data. Their mission is to support public
and private sector applications of geospatial data in such areas as transportation, community
development, agriculture, emergency response, environmental management and information
technology.
The NSDI is part of an evolving National Information Infrastructure which would provide
citizens access to essential government information. The FGDC (Federal Geographic Data
Committee) is coordinating the federal governments development of the NSDI.
OASIS for e-business
MapInfo's latest enterprise offerings support OASIS' universal description and discovery
interface (UDDI), which crosses operating systems and platforms. With the growth of e-
business MapInfo has become increasingly interested in choreography services like BPEL4WS
(business process execution language for web services), including determining how they can be
used in conjunction with our web offerings by integrators, authentication and security.
ACORD for the insurance industry
MapInfo is an active participant in the ACORD standards body for the insurance industry,
providing geospatial input to that community.
For more information on MapInfo in the Insurance industry, click here.
2008 Pitney Bowes MapInfo Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) for mobile telecommunications
MapInfo led the harmonization effort between the Location Interoperability Forum (LIF) part of
OMA and OGC. MapInfo also works with business partners to help influence relevant mobile
standards.
For more information on MapInfo in the Communications industry, click here.
IT Platform Standards
MapInfo is focused on ensuring our products and solutions interoperate with
each other and third party solutions. The standardization efforts of the broader community,
which are being embraced by all major software organizations, have allowed MapInfo to
incorporate capabilities from both Microsoft and Java into our product offerings. This ensures
customers can access technology and solutions that fit easily within their IT infrastructure and
integrate with third party systems.
Microsoft
MapInfo has a suite of Microsoft based applications and developer tools for desktop, web and
mobile mapping.
MapInfo places significant value on the Microsoft Logo Certification Program for its MapInfo
Professional product line. To that end, MapInfo is the only major geospatial vendor to meet the
stringent specifications of Microsoft and achieve logo status. The logo program is a third party-
tested standard which is difficult to obtain and maintain. The logo provides assurances of
interoperability with Microsoft products to MapInfo's user community.
MapInfo is releasing the next generation of our Microsoft product range utilizing
Microsoft's .NET platform. MapInfo's .NET offering will enable Desktop and WEB mapping
development environment in Microsoft Windows .NET environment. Using this single offering
developers can build map-enabled desktop solutions as well as web mapping applications.
MapInfo's MapXtreme .NET SDK
Java
MapInfo offers the only 100% Java (i.e., not a Java wrapper), Sun-certified spatial offering in the
market today. This certification assures MapInfo users of interoperability with the Java
community. It also allows users to generate 3-tier Web applications utilizing the entire MapInfo
range of offerings, including mapping, routing and geocoding, from simple web applications
requiring little or no Java/programming knowledge to complex production quality applications
using standard Java skills.
MapInfo's J2EE compliant products will run on any operating system that can support a Java
Virtual Machine (JVM) and will integrate with any J2EE-compliant Web server. J2EE is the de
facto standard for delivering secure, robust, scalable multi-platform applications and services.
Its success is predicated on compatibility, which brings Java technology's mission of "Write
Once, Run Anywhere" capability to the server.
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) for web services
MapInfo actively pursues and is implementing the W3C standards of SOAP (simple object
access protocol) and WSDL (web service definition language) to ensure high degrees of
interoperability. This brings MapInfo in line with the major infrastructure frameworks .NET and
SunONE (J2EE) who also embrace SOAP and WSDL.
Database Standards
MapInfo's goal is to allow access to any data from MapInfo applications, regardless of which
database management system (DBMS) is handling the data. MapInfo's support of both vendor
specific and vendor independent data access standards provides our customers with the richest
and most flexible geospatial feature set available today. When purchasing MapInfo technology,
customers can be assured that their investment will complement their existing and future
information technology infrastructure, and that it will provide them with a vast array of tools to
support their decision-making.
Connecting to data through standards
MapInfo's commitment to using open non-proprietary standards extends to how MapInfo's
applications and developer tools access data. MapInfo utilizes widely supported data
connectivity standards such as ODBC, JDBC, ADO, XML and OGCs GML. MapInfo also
supports vendor specific technology such as OCI (Oracle) and ADO.NET (Microsoft) as these
provide additional database development functionality to customers. By using standard
connectivity MapInfo ensures that data is accessed "in place" wherever it sits within your
enterprise without the need for middleware or proprietary formats. This provides MapInfo's
products and solutions with an distinct advantage in that they retain the power of the database
and do not require additional infrastructure to support data access.
More information on Corporate Spatial Data Management.
Oracle
For many years customers have been combining MapInfo and Oracle products in the creation of
first class geospatial solutions. MapInfo continues to certify its product line on the very latest
version of Oracle, Oracle Spatial and Locator, as well as the Oracle Application Server.
MapInfo's rendering products, such as MapInfo Professional, MapX and MapXtreme, access
Oracle Spatial and Locator directly. MapInfo's products communicate over standard protocols
with the latest Oracle databases. These protocols include the Oracle Call Interface (OCI), Java
Database Connectivity (JDBC), and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC).
Joint Vendor Initative
MapInfo recently announced a landmark initiative with several other Open GIS Consortium
members, Autodesk, Intergraph and Laser-Scan to reach agreement on spatial data types in
Oracle. Companies that are participating in the Initiative are developing Interoperability Kits,
also based on Oracle Spatial. These kits will enable customers to more easily share data among
the vendors' systems and take full advantage of the relative strengths of each vendor.
Microsoft SQL Server
MapInfo's products communicate over standard protocols with the latest SQL Server databases.
MapInfo will continue to test and support their product line with the latest SQL Server release.
Currently, MapInfo supports Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) connections to SQL Server.
Upcoming releases of MapInfo MapX, MapInfo MapXtreme Widows, and MapInfo Professional
will also support ADO.NET, a set of classes that expose data access services to the .NET
programmer.
MapInfo SpatialWare for SQL Server provides customers with the tools to construct, query,
analyse and maintain spatial data within a SQL Server database. Storing spatial data in a
relational database management system provides customers with many advantages including
access control, transaction control, database intelligence, performance, and the support for the
management of large and/or complex data sets. MapInfo provides this capability natively, using
SQL Server functionality rather than middleware. MapInfo's commitment to open standards
means that customers can integrate SpatialWare into their solutions easily and with little
additional investment. For example: SpatialWare follows closely SQL_MM, the standard for SQL
spatial; it follows closely coordinate system standards endorsed by OGC; and, it follows closely
the well known text (WKT) representation of geometries endorsed by OGC (i.e., users can load
and retrieve geometries in this generally accepted format).
For further information visit www.spatialware.com

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2007 Pitney Bowes MapInfo Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

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