I went to query this further as I didn't quite get the name of the company during question time and the question was about PlanetLabs:
https://www.planet.com/
Their aim is to fly a fleet of small satellites to provide continuous coverage. If you look at the gallery the pictures are pretty but the resolution is not really useful for the sorts of things Nearmap users are currently doing.
Skybox was also mentioned -- the guys Google bought for $500m. Similar story.
Neither of these companies have a business model. PlanetLabs in particular is currently doing a lot of marketing, presumably because they don't have the bankroll of Google and will need all the VC they can get until they can figure out a business model.
I'm not poo-pooing these companies entirely -- there are interesting applications from having 24x7 surveillance. e.g. you could monitor high level activity going in/out of business centres and that is tradable intelligence. But for the sake of Nearmap discussion I'm not sure that they are relevant.
They also mentioned DigitalGlobe's 30cm offering as another competitor.
The general feeling towards competitive image acquisition techniques (including drones) is that if it turns out that the imagery is useful to Nearmap customers they would seek to license.
I also asked the uncomfortable question about Spookfish and for obvious reasons they could not say much about them, other than that they're aware of Spookfish's activities.
Note that the following is purely my opinion. It is explicitly NOT based on anything any Nearmap officers or directors said.
As someone who enjoys making money I pondered if I should put some money in WSR (Spookfish) but my gut says no for the following reasons:
- they might have the camera technology but that is only one part of the equation
- they can copy the business model of Nearmap but they still need to get the operations right -- it took Nearmap ~2 years to bed this down, and there are still things they are learning from the US flights
- if they compete directly with Nearmap the pitch to customers is going to have to be either better imagery, better currency, and/or better price. Nearmap can adjust pricing to suit, and IMHO the imagery and pricing would have to be /amazingly/ better to make a customer switch as switching is not free (in terms of time/effort)
- even if Spookfish is financially successful you'll never know if they may be infringing upon Nearmap's IP, and /when/ Nearmap may choose to file suit
IMO the last one is the big bogey as it is outside of WSR's control. I'll happily admit I'm no expert in this field but I find it hard to believe that Spookfish would be able to create an entirely new system that doesn't utilise any of the IP they patented whilst at Nearmap.
I should also note that I am not a trader. I buy and hold long. There may well be money to be made on WSR through its volatility.
