Having a Geographical Information System (GIS) and a Business Intelligence (BI) infrastructure in place is not enough to enable Location Intelligence (LI). LI is the combination between spatial data and business data with the precise aim to improve the decision making process. In other words having a GIS and a BI infrastructure in place is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one, for realizing LI.
Integration of these two software stacks is needed. Unfortunately this is not any easy task 
GIS and BI have evolved and prospered in the past years separately one from the other. As a result they are really different in terms of technologies, communities and markets. It’s normal so that there are barriers to face and breakdown in order to bring these two different worlds together.
“The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something” – the last lecture, Randy Pausch
We want really badly to see this barriers fall down and will we work toward this aim in the near future. Our commitment in this direction is proved by what we have already done so far and from what we are planning to do next.
BTW playing the role of innovator in the LI domain is only a part of our plan. We would like to play also the role of the innovation facilitator by creating an open ecosystem composed by different subjects, coming from GIS and BI world, around LI and related technologies. More on this will be disclosed in the near future.
For the moment I would like to introduce my personal (home made) taxonomy of the main barriers to the pervasive diffusion of LI solutions. I usually devide them in two main categories:
- internal (integration) barriers
- external (adoption) barriers
Internal integration barriers are rooted in the existing differences between the communities that respectively backed BI and GIS. They originates by the past story of these two communities (cultural barriers) and by the way they look at the future (strategic barriers).
External adoption barriers are instead rooted in the natural market diffidence toward a brand new technology. LI solutions are just at the beginning of the adoption curve, very far from the chasm.
I will dedicate my next three posts to analyze separately each one of these barriers (cultural, startegic and market barriers) more in detail. Of course any suggestion and/or feedback on this topics is more than welcomed so do not be afraid to leave a comment down here 
Tags: business intelligence, Location Intelligence, open source, SpagoBI
Categories: Location Intelligence, Open Source Business Intelligence
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