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Last February, open source company Boundless (formerly known as OpenGeo) announced that Paul Ramsey had been named Vice President of Product Management. In this interview, Ramsey discusses his new function and comments on the new features of the OpenGeo Suite, Boundless' flagship product.
Boundless' New Vice President of Product Management
Introduction
Mr. Ramsey is a well-known geospatial software technologist. In 2001, he cofounded the PostGIS spatial database project and went on to win the Sol Katz Award for achievement in open source geospatial software for his efforts. He is also a noted speaker and advocate for open source geospatial technology.
Last February, open source geospatial technology provider Boundless (formerly known as OpenGeo) announced that Ramsey had been named Vice President Product Management. In this new function, he will be responsible for leading the direction and development of OpenGeo Suite and related Boundless products. Ramsey's current location is Victoria, British Columbia and he will further develop that office as an engineering center for the company.
"In my new role, I'm shaping OpenGeo Suite into the kind of toolkit people like the old me would love to use to build solutions for their operational users", explains Ramsey. He's referring to his early career when he was doing software-oriented work, particularly in the area of solving geospatial problems. Previously, he had worked for more than a decade in consulting and corporate management. Subsequently, he decided to spend more time doing programming, sold his stake in the GIS consulting company he ran and became a contract open source programmer, focusing on improving PostGIS and other C/C++ open source projects. From there, joining OpenGeo (now Boundless), was an obvious choice since it was the one company focused entirely on the open source side of the geospatial industry.
Last year, the company underwent a name change from OpenGeo to Boundless. The company has been providing commercial support for open source since 2008, but prior to last year had been operating as a division of the non-profit Open Planning Project. As a part of a non-profit, the ability to expand quickly was limited, and commercial operations became less compatible with the parent organization as they got larger and larger. Becoming an independent entity was a natural evolution, says Ramsey: "we loved...