SlashGeo Poll: Esri ArcGIS Online vs Google Earth Builder?

SlashGeo conducted a poll to find out which platform people preferred with regard to the ESRI ArcGIS Online vs Google Earth Builder debate.  The results are totally split.  Here are the results of the poll:

ESRI ArcGIS Online will prevail:  24%

Google Earth Builder will prevail: 24%
Both will be successes in their own way: 42%

Microsoft Bing Maps will rule them both: 2%

VerticalGeo is an avid user of both ESRI and Google Products.  This poll should have been a little more explicit in the question it asks.  ArcGIS Online and Google Earth both both do a great job with the presentation tier when producing geospatial data.  Neither do a very good job with the data authoring tier when producing geospatial data.  As far as VerticalGeo is concerned the ESRI suite of software products can’t be beat with it comes to authoring geospatial data.  The ESRI suite of software tools though is very expensive.  I believe there will soon be a proliferation of open-source geospatial creation and presentation tools that will compete against both ESRI and Google Earth.  What we really need if we want to develop a geospatial powerhouse are the robust tools that ESRI provides with the open source pricetag.

VerticalGeo will be venturing more deeply into the open source market to help provide just that.  We intend to combine cloud computing, open source tools for geospatial data authoring and maintenance, with a top notch presentation layer, all with a web-based interface, for free, in an attempt to help guild a community of geospatial users that will have a new alternateive to the ESRI vs Google Earth debate.