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Geoinformatics_05-2009
article new partnerships, satellites, products and strategies spot image international conference 2009 with two new constellations coming up, there was a lot of news to be shared at this year s spot image international conference 2009. at the diagora congress centre in labege, more than 450 visitors gathered for two days of user presentations and to hear about the company s latest developments, such as the planet action initiative, new remote sensing satellites, products and services. a good number of user presentations showed that satellite imagery is now finding its way into the public domain more and more. by eric van rees earth distribution division has a staff of 800 people, located in 13 countries with a total turnover in 160 million euros. spot image has six subsidiaries, and two foreign offices, which in total count 260 employees. the most recent of these new subsidiaries is spot image brazil, located in sao paolo. in terms of revenue, the company experienced its seventh year of continued growth in 2008, with total revenues of approximately 110 million euros. of course, the current economic situation may have a big influence on new figures, but buchwalter was nonetheless optimistic about the future. in fact, this was confirmed in other presentations during the rest of the conference, by users stating that satellite image-utilization is indeed economically beneficial. by using the same imagery for multiple purposes, clients are able to reduce costs. spot image sees a growth in the use of satellite imagery compared to other sources such as aerial imagery, which has technical limitations as well. some interesting new uses for satellite imagery were shown during the conference like oenoview, a new space-based service for the wine-growing industry. a great deal of buchwalter s opening speech was devoted to spot image s new strategies and commercial orientations. in order to maintain its market position, spot image is investing a lot in generating new capacities leading to better coverage in less time. in practice, this means new satellites and more of them for capturing imagery. perhaps the biggest news from this conference was the announcement of no less than two constellations, which in total make four new satellites: spot 6 and 7 and pleiades-1 and 2. but this is only one side of the story: a lot is being done to invent and implement new applications and business models and, lastly, an increase in the geographical presence on the planet ensuring better and quicker access to data july/august 2009 the spot image international conference 2009 was held on june 10 and 11 in toulouse, france. during two days, more than 450 registered visitors from 50 different countries joined to share their experiences with spot image s satellite imagery products and services, and were updated with details of what the future has in store. as a user conference, it meant the focus was on what s new and what s coming up . indeed, a lot has happened since the last international conference which was held in 2006. on the first conference day, visitors were updated on new developments at spot image, in terms of products, strategies and initiatives, and it concluded with a gala evening in the centre of toulouse. during the second day, visitors could attend numerous sessions focused on image-application themes. the diversity of the sessions showed that satellite imagery is now being used for many different purposes. not just mapping, surveillance and security, maritime and coastal monitoring but also forestry, agriculture, and the environment. what s new? the conference was opened by spot image s ceo herve buchwalter. in his excellent address, he touched on many topics that were discussed in detail in the following sessions. buchwalter started by outlining the new shareholding arrangement: since july 2008, spot image is a subsidiary of astrium within the eads group. astrium eads is spot s largest shareholder with 82%. together with infoterra, spot image forms the earth distribution pillar of astrium services. this 42
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