01 October 2010

Ordnance Survey launches new pricing and licensing model

Today, at an event for Licensed Partners, Ordnance Survey will reveal its new pricing and licensing model, which aims to enable greater access to its products and geographic datasets under a simplified structure.

Among the changes to be presented is the introduction of terms to allow partner businesses to licence and resell almost all Ordnance Survey products, including its flagship dataset, OS MasterMap Topography Layer.

Partners will also have greater flexibility in how they can onward license Ordnance Survey products, with the choice of how much or how little they want to include in their offerings. This will give customers greater choice of where they source their Ordnance Survey data.

There will also now be fewer, broader licences covering commercial activities. The three partner contracts unveiled today, have been created as a result of amalgamating terms from 12 existing contracts – which have all been substantially revised to be shorter and written in clearer English. For example, the new Framework Licence for partners has been reduced from 37 to 16 pages.

The new licences will also include improved terms covering warranties and liabilities.

Peter ter Haar, Ordnance Survey Director of Products, comments: “Our new pricing and licensing model is the result of many months of work. It seeks to address all the known issues that our customers have raised with us. It is a model, which is clearly a development from the existing one, but has caught up with changes in technology and how our customers wish to use our data.”

Perhaps the most discussed issue surrounding the use of Ordnance Survey data in recent years, has been the use of so-called ‘derived data’ – where customers create features or attributes with direct reference to the underlying Ordnance Survey data.

However, the mapping agency hopes greater clarity around the use of ‘derived data’ and the inclusion of new ‘Free to Use Data’ terms will alleviate many of those issues, allowing for greater sharing of information that has been inferred from existing features.

Ordnance Survey Director of Sales and Market Development, James Brayshaw, comments: “With the changes we are introducing, through greater simplicity and flexibility, we hope to see major growth in the use our data. By opening up almost our entire product portfolio to partner distribution, I think we shall see Ordnance Survey information breaking into new markets and providing new opportunities for everyone in the GI industry. It’s an exciting prospect.”

As well as the new licences, the first of which will become available from 18 November 2010 ahead of a second phase release in early 2011, partners will also be introduced to Ordnance Survey’s new pricing model, which will result in the vast majority of customers paying less.

Mr Brayshaw continues: “We’ve worked very hard to come up with a pricing model that is both sustainable and reflects excellent value for money. We appreciate that in this time of austerity many of our customers are seeking to tighten their belts and our new pricing model will help many of them to do that.”

Today’s event marks the culmination of work that began when Ordnance Survey launched its new Business Strategy in April 2009. Since then a number of developments that have influenced and shaped pricing and licensing development; most notably the launch of the free mapping service OS OpenData, on 1 April this year, and the signing of the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) for England and Wales.

Mr ter Haar concludes: “When combined with the free availability of data through OS OpenData, we believe that our new pricing and licensing model means high quality geographic information has never been more accessible. Over the coming months, I hope to see our data being used more than ever before.”

For more information on Ordnance Survey’s new pricing and licensing model visit www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business/licences

 

Notes to editors: 

1. Ordnance Survey is Great Britain’s national mapping agency, providing the most accurate and up-to-date geographic data, relied on by government, business and individuals.
2. All Ordnance Survey products will be available for partner distribution with the exception of OS MasterMap Imagery Layer, in which Ordnance Survey does not own the full intellectual property.
3. Pricing changes are being introduced as a result of revising the OS MasterMap Topography Layer density model to more accurately reflect the three key geography types – Settlement, Rural and Moorland. This is the first time the model has been revised in 10 years. The pricing model that underpins the partner contracts has also been revised, and includes greater flexibility with a range of royalty models available including the introduction of session royalties.
4. To download this news release visit www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/media. There you can also subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also follow us on Twitter - @OrdnanceSurvey
5. Ordnance Survey and the OS Symbol are registered trademarks. Twitter is a registered trademark of Twitter, Inc.   

 

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Head of Corporate Communications - Rob Andrews

Email: rob.andrews@ordnancesurvey.co.uk

Phone: (+44) 023 8005 5563

Senior Communications & PR Officer - Paul Beauchamp

Email: paul.beauchamp@ordnancesurvey.co.uk

Phone: (+44) 023 8005 5564

Press Office fax: (+44) 023 8005 6156