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| Esri | |
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | |
| Founded | 1969; 56 years ago (1969) Redlands,California, U.S. |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | , U.S. |
| Products | ArcGIS,ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Enterprise,ArcGIS Online,ArcGIS Pro |
| Revenue | $1.1 billion (2014 statistics)[3] |
Number of employees | 3,800+ (2016 statistics)[4] |
| Website | www |
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.,doing business asEsri (/ˈɛzriː/),[5] is an Americanmultinationalgeographic information system (GIS) software company headquartered inRedlands, California.[6] It is best known for itsArcGIS products. With 45% market share as of 2015, Esri is one of the world's leading supplier of GIS software,web GIS, local intelligence, andgeodatabase management applications.[7][8][9]
Founded in 1969 as aland-use consulting firm, Esri currently has 49 offices worldwide including 11 research and development centers in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific.[10][11] There are 10 regional U.S. offices and over 3,000 partners globally, with users in every country and a total of over a million active users in 350,000 organizations. These include Fortune 500 companies, most national governments, 20,000 cities, all 50 US States and 7,000+ universities. The firm has 4,000 total employees, and is privately held by its founders.[12][13][14] Strategic partners include Microsoft,Salesforce,Amazon Web Services,Autodesk, and SAP, among others.[15][16][17] In a 2016 Investor's Business Daily article, Esri's annual revenues were indicated to be $1.1 billion.[18]
In 1969, Esri was founded by the couple, Jack and Laura Dangermond, as Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), in Redlands, California. Esri was established when the couple started working on the technology to integrate human development with environmental stewardship atHarvard University’s lab for computer graphics and spatial analysis in the early 1960s. Inspired by the early mapmaking software in development at the lab, Jack and Laura Dangermond conceptualized using computer-powered mapping and analysis for complex problem-solving.[19][20]
The company released Arc/Info, the first commercial GIS program, containing maps attached to relational database. In the late 1990s, Esri reengineered Arc/Info and developed it into a modular and scalable GIS platform. Esri then switched from providing contract mapping services to developing mapping software products. The first ArcGIS software offering (8.1) was announced at theEsri International User Conference (Esri UC) in 2000. ArcGIS 8.1 was officially released on April 24, 2001.[21][22]
Esri uses the nameArcGIS 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. In a general sense, the term GIS describes anyinformation system that integrates, stores, edits, analyzes, shares and displaysgeographic information for informingdecision making. The term GIS-Centric, however, has been specifically defined as the use of the Esri ArcGIS geodatabase as the asset and feature data repository central tocomputerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) as a part ofenterprise asset management and analytical software systems. GIS-centric certification criteria have been specifically defined by NAGCS, the National Association of GIS-Centric Solutions.[citation needed]
As of October 2024, the company's desktop GIS suite is ArcGIS Pro 3.3.2, with the olderArcGIS Desktop (or ArcMap) version 10.8.2 inmature support (to be fully retired in March of 2026). The older ArcGIS Desktop consisted of several integrated applications, includingArcMap,ArcCatalog, ArcToolbox, ArcScene, and ArcGlobe. Esri's main desktop, or thick client, application is ArcGIS Pro which is slowly replacing the former main components of ArcGIS Desktop:ArcMap,ArcCatalog and ArcToolbox. Esri's desktop products allow users to author, analyze, map, manage, share, and publish geographic information.
ArcGIS Pro was introduced in early 2015 as a modern and fully 64-bit application with integrated 2D and 3D functionality.[23] The product suite is available in three levels of licensing:[24] Basic (formerly calledArcView), Standard (formerly calledArcEditor) and Advanced (formerly calledArcInfo). Basic provides a basic set of GIS capabilities suitable for many GIS applications. Standard, at added cost, allows more extensive data editing and manipulation, including servergeodatabase editing. Advanced, at the high end, provides full, advanced analysis and data management capabilities, includinggeostatistical andtopological analysis tools. Additionally, ArcGIS is compatible with followingOGC standards: WFS, WCS, GFS and various others.[citation needed]
ArcGIS Explorer, ArcReader, andArcExplorer are basicfreeware applications for viewing GIS data.[citation needed]
ArcGIS Desktop extensions are available, including Spatial Analyst for raster analysis, and 3D Analyst for terrain mapping and analysis. Other more specialized extensions are available from Esri and third parties.[citation needed]
Esri's original product,ARC/INFO, was 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 products were offered in Windows versions, and ArcView also as aMacintosh product. The names ArcView and ArcInfo were used for a while 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.[citation needed]
Server GIS products provide GIS functionality and data deployed from a central environment.ArcGIS Server is an Internet application service, used to extend the functionality of ArcGIS Desktop software to a browser based environment. It is available on Solaris and Linux as well as Windows.ArcSDE (Spatial Database Engine) is used as arelational database connector for other Esri software to store and retrieve GIS data within a commercially available database: currently, it can be used with Oracle,PostgreSQL, DB2, Informix and Microsoft SQL Server databases. It supports its native SDE binary data format,Oracle Spatial, and ST_geometry.ArcIMS (Internet Mapping Server) provides browser-based access to GIS. As of ArcGIS 10.1, ArcIMS has been deprecated in favor of ArcGIS Server, but there are still many instances of ArcIMS (10.0 and older) in production environments.Other server-based products include Geoportal Server, ArcGIS Image Server and Tracking Server as well as several others.[citation needed]
Mobile GIS conflates GIS, GPS,location-based services, hand-held 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. The firm's products for this use include Collector for ArcGIS, Survey123 for ArcGIS, ArcGIS QuickCapture and more. Former products and applications in this category includedArcPad and ArcGIS for Mobile.[25]
ArcGIS includes Internet capabilities in all Esri software products. The services, provided through ArcGIS Online at www.arcgis.com, include web APIs, hosted map andgeoprocessing services, and a user sharing program. A variety of basemaps is a signature feature of ArcGIS Online. The Esri Community Maps program compiles detailed user basemap information into a commoncartographic format called Topographic Basemap.[26]
The Esri Technical Certification program was launched in January 2011.[27] The program provides an exam based certification for Esri software. The core groups for the certification include Desktop, Developer, and Enterprise.[28]
The company hosts theEsri International User Conference, which was first held on the Redlands campus in 1981 with 16 attendees. The 44th User Conference was held inSan Diego at theSan Diego Convention Center from July 15th - 19th, 2024. In 2022, 31,590 users from 142 countries attended either in person or digitally.[29][30]
Esri provides low-cost access to ArcGIS software via special programs.[31] The company has provided free access to ArcGIS Online to over 100,000K-12 schools in the U.S. as part of Barack Obama’sConnectED initiative.[32]
Since 1994, Esri’s Disaster Response program has supported response and recovery for crises including the Northridge earthquake, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, 9/11, the space shuttle Columbia crash,COVID-19, the Baltimore bridge collapse, and New Mexico's fires and floods.
In 1989, Esri created the Esri Conservation Program to assist in changing the operations of non-profit organizations for their objectives of nature conservation and social change. Esri’s ArcGIS platform has provided GIS data, analytics software, and training to thousands ofnon-profit organizations and individual conservation projects since 1993.[33]
In 2017, Esri began a partnership with theUnited Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to create a data hub, Federated Systems, based on Esri's ArcGIS platform. The data hub will allow countries to measure, monitor, and report onSustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a geographic context.[34][35]
In 2019, Esri partnered with theJane Goodall Institute to develop tools to help communities map and manage their surrounding ecosystems using GIS software. In 2022, they partnered again to publish a book “Local Voices, Local Choices,” to describe the success of the Tacare approach to community-led conservation.[36][37][38]
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