GeoSynchrony
With a Geographic Information System,
users can see their data and interact with it visually. In many applications,
much more meaningful information can be conveyed visually that by any other
means. Think of the applications that could benefit from a GIS system.
- A cellular phone customer calls
to report a dropped call. You need to see if the nearest tower covers that
area. Customer retention is the key to profitability in the cellular phone
service.
- A DSL customer wants to know
when their neighborhood will get service. Wouldn't it be nice to have a
map boundaries by projected date of installation?
- A customer thinks he smells
natural gas and you need to dispatch the nearest work crew. A GIS system
could help you identify which truck is just around the corner.
While there are solutions on the
market for adding map functionality to an application, most do not allow for
the flexibility to design your application to suit your business problem or
current business model. That's why Applied Reasoning created GeoSynchrony.
GeoSynchrony is a Smalltalk framework,
which can be used for building Geographical Information Systems (GIS), or
adding GIS functionality to existing Smalltalk applications. A GIS can be
thought of as any system in which Geographical relationships are important;
and may often use interactive maps or other geographic diagrams as the user
interface. In this paradigm, users can see their data and interact with it
visually; in many applications, much more meaningful information can be conveyed
visually than by any other means.
GeoSynchrony is highly flexible
and configurable, and can be used to design such a system from the ground
up; however it also powerful GIS functionality for new and existing business
application. GeoSynchrony provides an application framework with all the basic
functionality for constructing maps and manipulating objects on the map. This
allows the developer to add GIS functionality to existing applications with
a minimum of change to existing code.
GeoSynchrony, first available in
1997, is currently available for VisualWorks Smalltalk with support for GemStone
object database. Applied Reasoning is evaluating customer demand for support
for the development of a Java release of GeoSynchrony.
Check out a GeoSynchrony
Demo
