I was surprised to receive a support mail from a customer which triggered a trip down the memory lane…what was interesting here is the customer was during 2001 after which I have switched jobs changed companies, the customer here is unique; Indian Defense, Project again, very secretive ; )Made a promise to the customer that no matter where we are (meaning ..switch companies ;)) we will still support if there is a need, engineers who worked on this project have all left the company for greener pastures …I was very happy to receive this mail for support mainly because this proved that the customer was ACTUALLY using the software which was developed, and also for this long. Research says that 65% of custom IT solutions are seldom used..;)
I soon contacted my pervious company to know the status, and then suggested a small tweak which solved the issue….This episode renewed my respect for manifold GIS http://www.manifold.net/
We have used incredibly low-cost GIS Software Suite for this mission critical customized application software. The point that it worked these many years without hitch is a testimony to this GIS platform. Manifold was chosen with only with one criterion; affordability (I remember it was 245$ ) we could not afford ESRI enterprise software for the project. I see the version now as Manifold 8.0 ( We worked on ver 4.5). I can see that several features are added into the software. Though it is difficult to choose Manifold over ESRI, I strongly recommend Manifold which will help do the tasks differently and easily.
