This is the interview between Dr. Song Guanfu, President of SuperMap Group and Korean media.
1. Dr. Song is the founder of SuperMap, what does SuperMap mean to you?
Technically, it was Prof. Zhong Ershun, my doctoral supervisor, who created SuperMap. SuperMap is more like a platform for me, a platform allows me doing what I really love doing.
When I was young, programming is my only hobby. I always stayed up very late programming, which because I really loved it rather than it was a work task. In 1996, because of my interest, I wrote ActiveMap based on Microsoft COM technology, which is a GIS component with basic GIS functions. The component was originally made out of fun, then it has been applied in one of projects of my supervisor and then the component has been developed and improved, becoming a prototype of GIS software. 1997, after SuperMap founding, ActiveMap has been applied and developed in another project. After obtaining my doctoral degree in 1998, Prof. Zhong asked me to set a team to develop ActiveMap. We changed the name to SuperMap and released the product in 2000.
SuperMap, the platform built by Prof. Zhong, allows me doing the job I really love. Through this platform, SuperMap GIS software can be applied in each industry and every part of the world, which is very cheering. I am very grateful to this platform and I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Zhong Ershun, my supervisor and chair of the board.
Since founding in 1997, SuperMap has walked 20 years, SuperMap GIS has the larger market share than American brands, occupying the first position in Chinese GIS market. Thousands of developers use SuperMap GIS to develop applications in various industries. Currently, there are 3,700 staff working in SuperMap. We hope to bring better tools for GIS application developers through SuperMap.
2. With the high speed growth of SuperMap, the environment has a huge change. How did you feel at the beginning of establishment of SuperMap? And how do you feel today?
The venture team of SuperMap originated from a scientific research team of Chinese Academy of Sciences led by Prof. Zhong Ershun. At that time, we had several thoughts, firstly, turn the scientific result not only as thesis, but as product to bring value; Secondly, we will get GIS platform software out of ‘professional’ through the innovation on product and technology, making it as a universal tool, improving IT capabilities, empowering geo-intelligence to IT applications. And then, this become SuperMap purpose: Innovating IT Value With Geo-intelligence.
Innovating IT Value With Geo-intelligence, is the reason why SuperMap exists, which also points out the direction for SuperMapers. In the past 20 years, we have walked along this road. SuperMap seized every technological revolution opportunity to constantly innovate GIS platform products and technology, bringing more powerful GIS development tools. In 2017, SuperMap GIS 9D was released, combining with cross-platform GIS technology, cloud & client integration GIS technology, new 3D GIS technology and big data GIS technology to fulfill the requirements of wider spatial applications.
3. What does GIS mean to you?
GIS has a professional term, but I prefer a simpler definition, ‘GIS is an information system which visualize, manage and analyze various thematic data based on digital map and location.’ The traditional definition focuses more on the storage, management and analysis on digital map, indeed, this is the priority problem GIS need to solve. However, GIS becomes a universal IT tool in more and more industries, we need to focus more on the contents besides professional mapping and basic map, and this is the contribution of GIS to IT.
GIS is the outcome of geoscience and IT, in which G represents geoscience and IS represents IT. We hope to seek a balance between G and IS, focusing both geoscience as well as IT without bias. We cannot make Gis, which focuses more on geoscience and neglect IT, making IT industry feel hard to understand and use. We can also not make gIS, with strong focus on IT and lack of geoscience theory as support, which is easy to use but hard to solve deeper problems.
4. ‘Platform software is our core business, but this is a very lonely process. Also win-win concept is a requirement, because other partners using our platform to develop software. Assuming you can make 1 million Yuan in an order, the platform software only takes tens of thousands Yuan, so this is a very difficult path.’ I watched you said this during an interview. Through the hard path, what role do you think SuperMap is playing in the entire GIS market?
SuperMap also works on system developments in several industries, however, in nearly other 100 industries, SuperMap focuses on providing GIS software development platform for industrial application developers without working on projects. In China, SuperMap currently has over 700 development partners.
The core positioning of SuperMap is GIS platform software, which is a strategic choice for SuperMap. The tough point for strategy selection is not to decide what to do, but to decide what not to do. Because deciding what not do means giving up, giving up opportunities, giving up interests. To make this decision, we must be very determined. In addition, we can only succeed if we help developers succeed first, which requires strategic endurance.
This process is very tough, but we have walked along this to today’s success. In the future, it will still be very cautious for SuperMap to choose a new industry to start a project.
