Hi Kat,
Thank you for some meaningful counter and relevant points. I too have spent much time thinking satellites are the biggest risk to this model. And maybe in time...10-20+ years they could be. I'll walk you through why.
Resolution: Sats best can only do 20cm in perfect atmospherics and perpendicular. Their current typical best delivery is 50-70cm. This is not sufficiently accurate for an SME operator to quote from.
2D Accuracy: From a 600km orbit, 2D Mercator grid coordination is not as accurate (obviously) than LIDAR from 1500m whose accuracy is enhanced by oblique imagery that a satellite cannot undertake.
3D Accuracy; Satellites are very poor, comparatively, at placing a pixel in any accurate altitude. This rules out any roofing contractor, for example, who need height and slope of roof. Same with construction guys, insurance agencies (especially for floods), landscapers etc. Satellites are an order of magnitude away from nailing this important variable.
Cost: The gap between an accurate, SME-usable satellite data Vs aerial is just too large at the moment. Its $30K++ Vs $1k. Please call up any satellite imagery provider (I have) and first ask them you want imagery data you can accurately quote from (they cant/wont/dont have) and secondly ask them what's the best they can do and what's the price. You WILL be blown away.
Flexibility: It takes a min of $20m to put a GIS sat into orbit. Once its there, it stays there and its physical hardware cannot be upgraded. For every degree from the vertical, its imagery resolution and accuracy decreases more than linearly. Aerial platforms cost typically $200-300k, can be readily upgraded and positioned anywhere given flight plan authorisation which is very rarely an issue.
I urge you to do a real cost and accuracy (usable) comparison and I think some of your points may become mute.
Petepan,
I hear you on the IP. Its one of my concerns too. They state that they use 'off-the-shelf' camera gear (albeit very, very high quality) so its more about the IP in handling (software) the data. To be honest, I'm not going to go anywhere near suggesting I may know a thing or 2 about their software IP or how easy it may/could be to copy/imitate.
What you may not know is the genesis of this group. They were previously internationally recognised IP assertion experts who took on and won many software defences against many of the biggest software/tech companies in the world. So I'm very confident they could really, and I mean really, beat up anyone who came close to their IP which is likely to be more stitched up than a Labour party branch vote.
All good questions/thoughts. Keep them coming.
Cheers,
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