DigitalGlobe Now a ‘Content Company’ with GlobeXplorer Buy
The satellite imagery industry saw further consolidation in Jan., just as competition intensified among the major Internet mapping services the industry supplies. Satellite picture provider and Google partner DigitalGlobe said it will buy competitor GlobeXplorer from Stewart REI Group for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock. The news came just after Microsoft revealed plans to integrate 400,000-plus square miles of GlobeXplorer aerial imagery into Virtual Earth, and as Apple unveiled its iPhone -- the first mobile phone incorporating Google Maps.
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The DigitalGlobe-GlobeXplorer union differs from the most recent commercial remote sensing merger. That union, between Orbimage and Space Imaging, cut the industry’s roster from 3 players to 2: DigitalGlobe and GeoEye. GlobeXplorer doesn’t fly a satellite constellation, as do DigitalGlobe and GeoEye; it’s more of an online image portal. GlobeXplorer’s takeover by DigitalGlobe unites its aerial-photo-heavy AirPhotoUSA library with DigitalGlobe’s archive of 125 million sq. miles of global satellite imagery.
The deal “extends and deepens” DigitalGlobe’s technology and customer base, DigitalGlobe officials said. It also will make the company more Web-friendly, they said. Long dependent on govt. contracts, the satellite image industry finally is going mainstream thanks to the popularity of Internet mapping, which lies at the center of local search and advertising.
More than 42 million people use Internet mapping sites, according to Nov. 2006 Nielsen data. Market share breaks down to MapQuest at 68%, Google Maps at 28% and Yahoo Maps at 27%, Nielsen said; the numbers exceed 100% because people use more than one. Demand is high and search engines are responding. In the summer Google launched updated versions of Google Earth and Google Maps with high-resolution satellite images of less than a yard resolution. The makeover, Google Earth’s first major update since its 2005 launch, quadrupled its high-resolution image index.
But Web mapping outfits don’t want to build their own libraries of satellite imagery, they “want it piped in,” Smith has said (CD April 6 p13). DigitalGlobe and competitor GeoEye have digital libraries overflowing with terabytes of pictures downloaded from imagery satellites, but it’s costly and burdensome for customers to get to the imagery and add it to their servers. Integrating GlobeXplorer should help fix that, Smith said.
GlobeXplorer’s purchase will enable DigitalGlobe “to put more complete products and solutions more quickly and easily into the hands of a broad range of users,” Smith said. For years, DigitalGlobe has focused on its satellites, traditional govt. costumers and large commercial users like oil and gas outfits -- now it’s “transforming into a content company,” a spokesman said. GlobeXplorer CEO Rob Shanks said the combined firms aim to be “at the forefront of distributing interactive geographic content” on the Internet. They will keep supplying images to both Google and competitor Microsoft, the DigitalGlobe spokesman said.
Industry watchers see 2007-2008 as a pivotal era for the satellite image industry. Both DigitalGlobe and GeoEye will launch next-generation satellites in that span. DigitalGlobe is readying WorldView 1 for a mid-2007 launch and WorldView 2 for a late 2008 liftoff. WorldView 1 will take photographs in black & white with 18” resolution, and WorldView 2 will take color pictures with 6-ft. resolution. The satellites will join DigitalGlobe’s aging QuickBird craft. GeoEye is readying GeoEye 1 for launch early this year. That satellite will take black & white pictures with 16” resolution and color photos down to 5.5 ft. GeoEye joins Orbview 2, Orbview 3 and Ikonos in orbit.
Govt. business also is expected to grow in 2007, spurred partly by a commercial remote sensing law by Rep. Udall (D- Colo.), industry officials told us. Signed during the just- ended Congress as part of the NASA Reauthorization Act, the measure authorized $15 million per year through 2010 for commercial and govt. remote sensing projects. To expand civilian agency use of such data, the law established a program at NASA to award grants for state, local and tribal govt. use of satellite imagery. “We anticipate this will drive demand… above and beyond the drastic gains we've already seen from the Internet,” the DigitalGlobe spokesman said.