ESRI
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- ESRI also refers to the Economic and Social Research Institute in Ireland.
Template:Infobox Company ESRI 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.
With annual sales of more than $560 million, ESRI remains a world leader in the Geographic Information System (GIS) software industry. Their business involves the development and support of GIS software, with customers including small businesses, large corporations, and governments 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 [1]; and a network of more than 75 international distributors with more than a million users [2] in more than 200 countries.
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Ownership
Template:Main Jack Dangermond is the founder and current president of ESRI. Promotional and marketing copy for the company prominently mentions the company remains privately-held and is one of the largest privately held software companies. The ownership of the company is often more stressed than the history of the company or their current product line.
Pronunciation of company name
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 about that 'older' users prefer E-S-R-I, while novice users use the 'ehseri' pronunciation (the joke is that it's due to ignorance). Employees of ESRI still pronounce the name in both fashions (typically depending on the audience), however, it is preferred that they refer to the company as E-S-R-I.
Products
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.
Desktop GIS
ESRI's current desktop GIS suite is version 9.1, with the basic suite including ArcView. ArcGIS Desktop software products allow you to author, analyze, map, manage, share, and publish geographic information. ArcView is currently available in Unix and Windows variants. At added cost, ArcEditor expands the desktop capabilities to allow more extensive data editing and manipulation. At the high-end, is ArcInfo which provides full, advanced analysis and data management capabilities. ArcReader a basic freeware application 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 products were the UNIX desktop product ArcView GIS and a command line product Arc/INFO. Over time both of those products were offered in Windows versions and ArcView as a Macintosh product. The names ArcView and ArcINFO are used to name different levels of licensing in ArcGIS.
Server GIS
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. ArcGIS Server is an internet application service, used to extend the functionality of ArcGIS Desktop software to a browser based environment.
Other server based products include GIS Portal Toolkit, ESRI Image Server and Tracking Server.
Developer GIS
Developer GIS products allow you to build custom desktop or server GIS applications or embed GIS functionality in existing applications. These focused solutions can then be easily deployed throughout an organization. (Product: ESRI Developer Network or EDN)
Mobile GIS
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)
GIS web services
GIS Web services give a diverse user community access to geospatial content and capabilities. Public Services is free to developers building non-commercial, non-governmental applications. Commercial Services provides complete access to all available data. (Products: ArcWeb Services—Commercial Services , ArcWeb Services—Public Services)
Lightweight viewers
Lightweight GIS data viewers provide a quick and easy way to view geographic data. (Products: ArcReader, ArcExplorer (and the UK version MapExplorer), ArcGIS Explorer)
Primary Competitors
ESRI's primary competitors include Oracle Corporation, GE Energy, Intergraph, MapInfo, and AutoDesk.
While web service-based mapping such as Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, and viewer programs such as Google Earth have been widely popular with the general public, these are not direct competitors to ESRI. GIS software, including ArcGIS, provide extensive professional-level analytical and data management capabilities, whereas these web services are aimed at the consumer-level only offer imagery of air photos, road data and basic route planning information. The products do not offer the analysis capabilities, image interpretation and data management offered in GIS and remote sensing software packages. The demand remains strong for enterprise analytical and data management capabilities that are provided by ESRI's full-blown GIS software packages. ESRI does offer mainly for-fee web service-based mapping called ArcWeb Services and provides a no-cost subset of the functionality and data for personal, noncommercial, and nongovernmental development projects.