We’ve just signed the paperwork on a partnership with OpenGeo, the group led by Chris Holmes that provides support and development chops for PostGIS, GeoServer, OpenLayers, and GeoExt.  Given our commitment to Open Source software, signing on as a partner with OpenGeo probably doesn’t strike you as particularly earth shaking.

But, back in November, we inked the paperwork on a partnership with Latitude Geographics, the company that develops GeoCortex.  If you’re familiar with GeoCortex, you know that it’s designed to streamline the effort needed to stand up a web mapping application within a 100% pure ESRI environment.

What’s up?  It might seem counter intuitive that we’d consider partnering with both of these companies.

But the way I look at it, each partnership makes sense.  Here’s why: we’re most interested in helping our clients get the most out of their investment in geo-technology and geospatial data.

For us, it’s not about some sort of Open vs Proprietary ideology.  Instead, we’re interested in improving government’s ability to provide services, lowering utilities maintenance and operations costs, and preserving cultural history.  That means truly using the tools that best meet the technical and business constraints within our clients organization.

Even more importantly, both OpenGeo and Latitude share our belief that our job is to advance our clients’ capabilities.  Our goal isn’t to deploy another copy of ArcGIS Server (or GeoServer), but to use geospatial data and tools to achieve a tangible improvement in the way our clients complete their daily activities.

That’s a breath of fresh air compared to many of the vendors and companies that have approached Farallon looking to “partner”.