Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI)

Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., is a leading software provider and research and development [Page 127]organization dedicated to the geographic information systems and geographic information science community. The company is often referred to as “ESRI” (“ezree”), though the acronym is properly pronounced as the set of four letters. ESRI's family of software products, ArcGIS, is a worldwide standard in the GIS sector.

ESRI was founded in 1969 by Jack and Laura Dangermond (who to this day continue as president and vice president) as a privately held consulting firm that specialized in land use analysis projects. The early mission of ESRI focused on the principles of organizing and analyzing geographic information. Projects included developing plans for rebuilding the City of Baltimore, Maryland, and assisting Mobil Oil in selecting a site for the new town of Reston, Virginia.

During the 1980s, ESRI devoted its resources to developing and applying a core set of application tools that could be applied in a computer environment to create a geographic information system. In 1982, ESRI launched its first commercial GIS software, ARC/INFO. It combined computer storage and display of geometric features, such as points, lines, and polygons representing geographic entities, with a database management tool (INFO) for assigning attributes to these features. Originally designed to run on minicomputers, ARC/INFO emerged as the first modern GIS. As the technology shifted to UNIX and later to the Windows operating systems, ESRI evolved software tools that took advantage of these new platforms. This shift enabled users of ESRI software to apply the principles of distributed processing and data management.

The 1990s brought more change and evolution. The global presence of ESRI grew with the release of ArcView, an affordable, easy-to-learn desktop mapping tool, which shipped an unprecedented 10,000 copies in the first 6 months of 1992.

In 1997, ESRI embarked on an ambitious research project to reengineer all of its GIS software as a series of reusable software objects. Several hundred manyears of development later, ArcInfo 8 was released in December 1999. ArcGIS is a family of software products forming a complete GIS built on industry standards that provide powerful yet easy-to-use capabilities right out of the box. ArcGIS today is a scalable system for geographic data creation, management, integration, analysis, and dissemination for small as well as very large organizations. ArcGIS has both desktop products (ArcInfo, ArcEditor, ArcView, and ArcReader) and an integrated server (ArcGIS Server). The software can be customized using industry standard .NET and Java.

Today, ESRI employs more than 4,000 staff worldwide, more than 1,750 of whom are based in Redlands, California, at the world headquarters. With 27 international offices, a network of more than 50 other international distributors, and over 2,000 business partners, ESRI is a major force in the GIS industry.

ESRI software is used by more than 300,000 organizations worldwide, including most U.S. federal agencies and many other countries' national mapping agencies; 45 of the top 50 petroleum companies; all 50 U.S. state health departments; most forestry companies; over 1,000 universities; 24,000 state and local governments, including Paris, Los Angeles, Beijing, and Kuwait City; and many others in dozens of industries.

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