(Licenses are way too expensive for hobbyists, casual users, or open-source geeks!) At minimum you need to keep a current ArcGIS Online subscription if you ever think you will move back to an ArcGIS shop. Keeping your ArcGIS skills fresh while actually using a different platform is difficult with the current ESRI offerings. Since I left the Intergraph and Smallworld arenas to join the ArcGIS juggernaut, it appears Smallworld has added some java interfaces to attract more mainstream developers and has tried to plant itself firmly as a large-enterprise, big-data-center solution. Made a lot of consultants rich back in the day. Utility networks are something that ESRI has only recently begun to address within its core products, delegating most utility-oriented functionality to 3rd party partners until now. Many of the "GIS" capabilities are similar, but the value-added is specifically for utility networks and GE has a long and successful track record in that space. Since Duke *is* a utility, Smallworld is a quite a good solution for that problem domain. Shows the good marketing efforts of ArcFM I guess. I never understood how ESRI gained any traction in the utility space. The data model was robust (many geometry properties allowed in one object!), the network actually worked, and so did versioning, and Magik seemed like a simplified javascript syntax before javascript got formal packages and requires. Similar ideas map easily, for example, versioning, geometry, rendering etc.
There are a lot of analogs between all GISes, given the common underlying problems with geospatial data storage, manipulation, and representation. In the mid 2000s I had briefly switched from Intergraph to Smallworld (version 3.something) for a data conversion gig, and it was fairly straightforward to understand, especially if you have someone give you a tour. I know this is a dead thread, but I have a little experience in Smallworld arena.
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