The European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC) is studying the possible conditions for establishing a Marketplace Alliance for EO Services (MAEOS).

The organization has just about reached the half-way stage of this work and has held an extensive consultation with the stakeholders and mapped this to possible functions and architecture. The results are looking quite positive and have helped enormously to clarify the complex landscape with a presentation to the EARSC board regarding the outcome of this work.

The EARSC board has decided that the industry should move immediately towards establishing an EOMall which would be a completely separate legal entity to EARSC. The EOMall would operate a marketplace on behalf of those companies which choose to join and invest in the venture. At the same time, EARSC will define possible policy and governance conditions for companies working together under a lighter structure which will be the MAEOS.

The result is that every company will have a choice whether to join the close collaboration in the EOMall, work in a lighter co-operation under EARSC/MAEOS or stay outside both and operate independently. All companies will be able to remain in the EARSC network and benefit from the lobbying and information activities but those seeking closer co-operation will receive additional benefits.

The MAEOS study should be completed early next year and a meeting is planned for January to present the packages to industry so they can start to take decisions on the level of co-operation each one wishes to engage in with EOMall. In the meantime, the interim results, including those from the stakeholder consultation analysis, will be presented on October 25, 2016, at the EO Innovation Europe: Network of Platforms Architecture and Implementation—Stakeholder Consultation Workshop at ESRIN in Frascati. The registration link is here...

For more information on MAEOS / EOMall, please access this direct link...