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^ multiple 
tions that 
zeal to 
exploit the multimedia marketplace. One of 
the key barriers is that many people see 
multimedia as essentially a toy with little 
practical business use. Some see multimedia's 
potential but believe that it is not a mature 
technology and are waiting for new 
developments. Some see it as a new and 
complex environment that would be far more 
expensive to implement than traditional 
systems. 
Although some key challenges remain, 
multimedia is practical, useful and can be 
implemented enterprise-wide. Multimedia 
development cycles are shorter and less 
expensive that traditional custom 
development. 
The characteristics that are bringing 
multimedia in general, and GIS specifically, to 
the corporation are the adoption of 
standards, ingenious development by specialist 
companies and the exploitation of object- 
oriented programming. 
In order to bring technology successfully to 
the marketplace, multimedia developers have 
created and adopted industry standards. 
Some of these standards relate to: video 
compression, video conferencing, CDROM, 
audio compression, colour output, user- 
interface and graphical data. 
  
  
PRESENTATION 
  
  
TRAINING 
  
  
Figure 2 
ACCOUNTING 
0 
MANAGEMENT 
TRIN 
   
  
    
   
FACSIMILE 
CONFERENCE | 
  
“Outside looking in” 
Multimedia and GIS applications tend to be discrete, specialized and not integrated into 
the enterprise’s information structure. 
There are significant advantages in the 
adoption of standards other than the general 
benefit of protecting an investment. Many of 
these standards resolves bandwidth and 
processor-overhead problems associated with 
GIS graphical information. They allow for the 
use of “best of breed” software and hardware 
solutions. The most important aspect of the 
adoption of industry standards relates to the 
ability to integration data with a wide variety 
of applications. 
393 
Bill Gates of Microsoft has articulated a vision 
that he calls “information at your fingertips”. 
The premise of information at your fingertips 
is that organizations will migrate from 
acquiring and using computer applications 
towards an information-centric environment. 
The characteristic of information centricity is 
that applications will be used as building 
blocks. Industry standards in multimedia are 
the link that will allow organizations to use 
GIS enterprise-wide.