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Private
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Redlands, California ( 1969 )
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Redlands, California , USA
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Jack Dangermond , Founder/President
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Software <br> Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
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ArcGIS , ArcView 3x , ArcInfo , ArcIMS , ArcSDE , ArcGIS Server , ArcWeb Services
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More than $610 million per year
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4,000+ (2007 statistics) ESRI - Company's history
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wwwesricom
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was founded as '''Environmental Systems Research Institute''' in 1969 as a privately held consulting firm that specialized in land use analysis projects. The worldwide headquarters of ESRI are anchored in a multicampus environment in
Redlands, California .
ESRI's business involves the development and support of GIS software, with customers including
Small Business es, large corporations, non-government organizations (
NGO s) and
Government s at all levels.
ESRI has offices throughout the United States; a business partner program with more than 2,000 developers, consultants, resellers, and data providers
ESRI - Company Statistics; and a network of more than 80 international distributors with more than a million users in more than 200 countries.
ESRI hosts an annual International User's Conference, which has been held in San Diego for the past 10 years. An estimated 14,500 worldwide users attended in 2007.
See Also: Jack Dangermond
Jack and Laura Dangermond founded ESRI in 1969. Jack Dangermond is the current president of ESRI.
According to the company, ESRI is not pronounced as a word (es-ri) but as distinct letters (ee, ess, aar, I) similar to IBM, SAP and other software companies with an acronym based name. It is thought within the GIS circles, and even joked that 'old' users prefer E-S-R-I, while novice users use the 'ez-ree' pronunciation. Employees of ESRI still pronounce the name in both fashions (typically depending on the audience).
ESRI Forum - Pronunciation
See Also: ArcGIS
ESRI uses the name
ArcGIS to refer to its suite of GIS software products, which operate on desktop, server, and mobile platforms. ArcGIS also includes developer products and web services.
ESRI's current desktop GIS suite is version 9.2, which shipped in final release form in November, 2006. ArcGIS Desktop software products allow you to author, analyze, map, manage, share, and publish geographic information.
ArcGIS Desktop comes in three levels of licensing:
ArcView ,
ArcEditor and
ArcInfo . ArcView provides a robust set of GIS capabilities suitable for many GIS applications. ArcEditor, at added cost,, expands the desktop capabilities to allow more extensive data editing and manipulation, including server
Geodatabase editing.
ArcInfo is at the high end and provides full, advanced analysis and data management capabilities, including
Geostatistical and
Topological analysis tools. At all levels of licensing,
ArcMap ,
ArcCatalog and
ArcToolbox are the names of the applications comprising the desktop package.
ArcReader ,
ArcExplorer , and
ArcGIS Explorer are basic
Freeware applications for viewing GIS data.
ArcGIS Desktop Extensions are available, including Spatial Analyst which allows raster analysis, and 3D Analyst which allows terrain mapping and analysis. Other more specialized extensions are available from ESRI and third parties for specific GIS needs.
ESRI's original product was
ARC/INFO , a command line GIS product available initially on minicomputers, then on UNIX workstations. In 1992, a GUI GIS,
ArcView GIS , was introduced. Over time, both of those products were offered in Windows versions and ArcView was offered as a
Macintosh product. The names ArcView and ArcInfo are now used to name different levels of licensing in ArcGIS Desktop, and less often refer to these original software products. The Windows version of ArcGIS is now the only ArcGIS Desktop platform that is undergoing new development for future product releases.
Server GIS products allow GIS functionality and data to be deployed from a central environment.
ArcIMS (Internet Mapping Server) provides browser based access to GIS.
ArcSDE (Spatial Database Engine) is used as an
RDBMS connector for other ESRI software to store and retrieve GIS data within a commercially available RDBMS. Currently ArcSDE can be used with Oracle, DB2, Informix and Microsoft SQL Server databases. It supports its native SDE binary data format,
Oracle Spatial , and ST_geometry.
ArcGIS Server is an internet application service, used to extend the functionality of ArcGIS Desktop software to a browser based environment.
ArcGIS Server is available on Solaris and Linux as well as Windows and will eventually phase out ArcIMS. Other server based products include GIS Portal Toolkit,
ArcGIS Image Server and Tracking Server as well as several others.
Mobile GIS conflates GIS, GPS, Location-based services, handheld computing, and the growing availability of geographic data. ArcGIS technology can be deployed on a range of mobile systems from lightweight devices to PDAs, laptops, and Tablet PCs.
Products:
ArcPad , Mobile ArcGIS Desktop Systems, ArcGIS Server (Server-oriented
API s), ArcWeb Services (Web-oriented
API s) and hosted geographic databases.
Developer GIS products enable building custom desktop or server GIS applications or embed GIS functionality in existing applications. These focused solutions can then be easily deployed throughout an organization.
Products: ESRI Developer Network or EDN,
ArcEngine (Desktop-oriented
API s), ArcGIS Server (Server-oriented
API s and a web development ADF which is part of ArcGIS Server),
ArcWeb Services (Web-oriented
API s)
ArcWeb Services give a diverse user community access to geospatial content and capabilities. Central to ArcWeb Services is the geographic data it aggregates, and a variety of geographic services such as map display and address geocoding. ArcWeb Public Services are free to developers building non-commercial, non-governmental applications. ArcWeb Commercial Services provides fee-based access to additional capability.
Products: ArcWeb Services—Commercial Services , ArcWeb Services—Public Services, and Web-oriented
API s.
In 1989 the
ESRI Conservation Program was started to help change the way nonprofit organizations carried out their missions of nature conservation and social change. This vision involved providing GIS software, data, and training, as well as helping to coordinate multiorganizational efforts (ie.
The Society For Conservation GIS ). ESRI continues to support this program because it believes in what conservationists are doing and that their efforts are important to the future of our planet.
On June 28, 2006, an ESRI official said that the company had received a federal subpoena as part the ongoing investigation into the ties between
Jerry Lewis and
Copeland Lowery . "We have no concerns," ESRI spokesman Don Berry said. "We retain a lobbyist and it is not an issue for us." On September 5, 2006, the Associated Press reported that federal investigators were looking into a donation of 41 acres of land to the city of
Redlands by the owners of ESRI in 2001, land adjacent to the home of Lewis.
Between 2001 and 2006, Lewis earmarked more than $90 million for ESRI projects that included defense intelligence systems such as database mapping to assist in rebuilding Iraq. Other projects included using GIS methodologies to assess the fire danger of the San Bernardino Mountains, to help move troops in the
Iraq War , and to assist in reconstruction after
Hurricane Katrina . From 1998-2003, the company also received another $60 million in defense contracts outside of those earmarks.
ESRI has paid Lowery's firm $320,000 since 1998. Jack and Laura Dangermond have consistently been among the top individual contributors to Lewis' campaign fund, giving a combined $13,900 between 2000 and 2005. The couple has donated a combined $32,900 to the campaign fund and Lewis'
PAC since the 2000 election cycle.
