Laying points on US map

Openmap Users ,
        I want to explain things I have to accomplish before going deep into
the subject.
Our application runs entirely on server side with Tomcat and Apache
webserver and the entire application is developed in java. It access data
from the oracle database. This application is available to the registered
associates of the company thru internet, so it may be treated as intranet
application with larger view. Each associate logs into the application, and
it serves the data specific to him in the form of reports and graphs, this
is developed entirely using java sevlets,beans,jsps.
          Now we want to show the data on NORTH AMERICA MAP by laying
points on it based on the data accumulated from oracle database grouped by
zip code. This entire thing should be done on the server side, and once the
map is ready with points on it, it will be shown on the web page. User is
not going to interact with map after it is shown on the web page, so we
don't want any "listeners" which track the user interaction with map. So our
work is entirely on the server side.

    After detailed analysis we had sorted out the following things to be
done in order to accomplish the above task from the maps point of view.

1. Obtain the USNorthAmerica Map in which ever format we want.

2. Assign xy coordinates for each record obtained from database based on zip
code.
   (this we thought of doing by converting to Lat/Long vales and then get xy
coordinates).

3. Develop an algorithm of plotting points on the map by grouping the
records into four
   or five categories based on the no of record for a particular associate
which is dynamic.

4. Other than plotting points we have to show the legend on the map with the
range of no's for
   each legend color i.e. (0-500,500-1000,1000-1500) etc.

         So in this scenario, after doing some searches on the web, we found
that we can use ur tool for accomplishing the above tasks.

              When I went thru the demos , always it is generating applets
only, is there any way we can convert applets into .gif files so that we can
avoid loading applets into the web page.
       Is there any limitation that it can read only .shp and .ssx files. I
didn't find anywhere of generating maps with gif files.

          As far as you see how far does ur tool can help us in
accomplishing these tasks. If so is there any way of having technical
support from the company for at least few months regarding the usage of
packages available in the tool.
         My explanation may not be that much efficient, I tried my best to
explain the things forgive me for any mistakes. So I look forward for ur
suggestions because we have to meet our deadlines of the project.

Thanks,
Ravi.k.

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