Google launched Earth Builder last week. On the surface, this is an attempt to bring existing Google tools such as Google Maps and Google Earth into the enterprise, and seize a piece of the valuable Geographic Information Systems (GIS) market from incumbents such as ESRI. It’s more than that, though, and Om explores some of the implications. Remember what Google did with the sloppy mess of our millions and millions of unstructured web pages? Just imagine what the company will begin to do when handed access to highly targeted, highly structured, highly specific data such as the stuff with which most decent GIS installations are crammed? This could get interesting, and is potentially a very long way from yesterday’s GIS.