Geospatial World

So I figured it was time to get SQL Server 2008 Spatial up and running on my machine.  After installing a few pre-requisites (Windows PowerShell, MS Installer 4.5, etc) I was able to upgrade my current SQL Server 2005 Express, to SQL Server 2008 Express. The install went fairly smoothly with the expcetion of not installing the SQL Server Management Studio Express (SSMSE).  After a quick Google search it was apparent this was a common problem, and you simply needed to re-run the install and choose to install the Management Tools - Basic (which btw, I did not recall seeing during the original upgrade, so I'm not sure if this is by design or not?) Once SSMSE was installed I fired up Map 2009, and Bulk Copied some data from a previous SQL Server Schema (non-spatial), and was able to create a non FDO schema and dumped some data into it. I was pleasantly surprised whn I popped back into SSMSE and found the Spatial Results tab on one of the tables I selected.  This tab provides a nice gra...

Earlier this week at the FOSS4G conference taking place in Cape Town, South Africa, Autodesk announced the availability of 2 new FDO Providers through the subscription program: Autodesk FDO Provider for GE Smallworld and Autodesk FDO Provider for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 . “The latest FDO Providers allow customers to take advantage of the native support for additional spatial data formats -- and let users more easily access, view, edit and analyze data -- within Autodesk geospatial software.” Take Care, Warren AU in 59 days

While I have been unable to find any direct information from the Microsoft website regarding a lack of support for arc segments in the new SQL Server 2008 Spatial, I did find a few posts on the Microsoft Tech Forums, and one specifically from Isaac Kunen stating that arcs are not supported, and are a high priority item for the next release. Personnaly, I think this a deal-breaker for many organizations, and I believe it would be in Microsoft's best interest to address this shortcoming sooner, rather than later. Here ia another great comparison document that cross compares  SQL Server 2008 Spatial, PostgreSQL/PostGIS 1.3-1.4, MySQL 5-6 Take Care, Warren AU in 60 days