Wow, after reading the article I think these guys can provide excellent supplementary images to Nearmap (especially all those rural areas that has virtually zero population since these areas are currently not commercially viable for Nearmap to capture).
While it is very easy for these "Planet" guys to sell supplementary images to Nearmap (just as they would to any other agricultural customer); I don't see these guys as a potential competitor at all because even if you can discard the fact that their:
- Images have lower resolution
- Images are prone to atmospheric distortions & interference (eg cloud cover)
There are still issues of User Experience and COST that needs to be address. One of Nearmap's "secret sauce" is their ability to stitch and present multiple high resolution images into one continuous canvas that is fast & easy to navigate online and with many tools and data layers superimposed onto it. This is the new world and Nearmap has done a great job in creating this new world & disrupting everybody in the US.
Any would be competitor who are just trying to sell image reports or a simple dump of thousands of images onto a CD or on a file server will not be able to compete in this new world.
Yes, these "Planet" guys capture the entire earth at much higher frequencies but it means very little if the majority of small to medium size companies cannot use it or cannot afford it.
Forget about the cost of creating these "Doves" mini satellites in the first place, if you factor in the cost of launching and then maintaining & replacing ANYTHING in space, it is not hard to see this will be way too expensive for early "retail type" users of their services.
If small businesses are complaining that a basic Nearmap subscription of $1000 a year is expensive, I would hate to see how successful these "Planet" guys will be if their basic Earth View Subscriptions start at $100,000 per year?
Anyway, at the end of the day, I think these "Planet" guys are targeting a completely different customer segment to Nearmap. And I believe an alliance scenario is far more likely than a competitor scenario.
