Snowflake Software teams with grit GmbH

15 January 2008, 11:30am

January 15, 2008 - Snowflake Software and grit GmbH: Serving the German Community

Snowflake Software and grit GmbH announce a teaming agreement to supply GML tools and expertise to the German market. Snowflake has selected the Werne based company as its representative, enabling them to promote and resell its product suite throughout the German speaking regions.

With the introduction of AFIS - ALKIS - ATKIS and the NAS-GML application schema for the exchange of AAA data , there is an increased need for easy-to-use tools to read and write GML. Snowflake Software has over 6 years' experience in this arena, having supported the UK market in the migration to its GML-based digital data, OS MasterMap. The core of Snowflake's products is a unique schema aware technology that can be applied to any GML data.

grit fully understands the concerns of the customer base in exchanging data according to the new NAS GML schema. The general opinion is that new ALKIS data model is considerably more complex than the current ALK model.

The situation is complicated further by the fact that the Cadastral Authorities in Germany will begin the ALKIS implementation with different GeoInfoDok revision levels: moreover the standard is open to country specific additions.

While acknowledging this concern, however, there is no doubt that ALKIS data is now much simpler to use and enjoys a wider application base: if, that is, one has the right tool sets.

Since GO Loader can be applied to any GML data, it is possible to support the comprehensive translation of NAS data from a variety of disparate sources (ie different GML revision levels) into an open database model. GO Loader enables the reliable, easy and quick integration of GML into a geospatial database, supporting partitioning, versioning, historical archives and continuous Change Only Updates (COU) / Bestandsdatenaktualisierung (NBA) across GIS applications. GO Publisher ensures the easy translation and publication of information from a variety of data models into any given GML application schema. In this way, the data can be provided in exactly the required format as is requested by the user - the complexity of the ALKIS Model remains concealed. This is particularly advantageous for existent applications.

Together, the products provide a read-write capability for ALKIS and NAS, irrespective of revision level.

As experts in their region, grit GmbH was the perfect choice for Snowflake when selecting a channel to address the German market.

"We are delighted to be teaming with a company who shares the same strategic direction as us," explained Ian Painter, Managing Director of Snowflake Software. "Together we will be able to further develop the product suites and continue to provide comprehensive web based solutions to address the market."

Andreas Rose, Managing Director (Geschäftsführer) of grit GmbH confirmed: "It is the focus on XML/GML standards and technologies that attracted us towards the Snowflake Software product lines. We have no doubt that these tools provide us with an easy, quick and flexible approach to working with ALKIS data. The resultant solutions will be a great benefit to our customers."

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Geo: International