Trace: Environmental …earch Institute

Environmental Systems Research Institute

From GISWiki

1 Major Products
2 Ownership
3 Primary Competitors
4 Weblinks

ESRI - Environmental Systems Research Institute

ESRI abbreviates the name of Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.. ESRI, founded in 1969, is a software development firm based in Redlands, California. ESRI is the largest producer of Geographic Information System software in the world, with large offices in both the United States, United Kingdom, and smaller offices elsewhere.

ESRI is not pronounced "es-re". It is pronunced "E", "S", "R", "I".

Major Products

Their server product targeted at Internet applications is called ArcIMS. Their current desktop-GIS is called ArcGIS version 9.1. This product is currently available in Unix and Windows variants. Their original products were the UNIX desktop product ArcView 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. Another important product is ArcSDE which is an application server sitting on top of some common RDBMS for systems using Unix, Linux, and Windows.

Ownership

Jack Dangermond is the founder and current president of the 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.

Primary Competitors

ESRI's primary competitors include GE Energy, Intergraph, MapInfo, and AutoDesk.

Increasingly people state web service-based mapping such as Google Maps and Yahoo Maps and viewer programs such as Google Earth are putting pressure on ESRI and similar companies. However, this shows a lack of understanding the full ability of GIS and Remote Sensing software. 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.