Keep your friends close...

And your enemies closer. It seems ESRI has yet to learn that particular piece of the wisdom of Sun-tzu, and that’s too bad. By excluding “competitors” that are very small compared to the overall marketplace, ESRI is being penny-wise and pound foolish. Sure, open source will steal a few accounts here and there, but the real prize is to co-opt them into your ecosystem, where you can keep an eye on them, a lesson Microsoft has clearly learned.