Esri (Mapping and Analytics Software)
Headquartered in Redlands, California, Esri is a pioneer in location analytics software and the resulting applications. Today more than 350,000 organizations worldwide rely on Esri software. Jack Dangermond is Esri’s CEO; he co-founded the company with his wife Laura in 1969. Part of what makes Esri unique is the ingrained passion they have for making the world a better place. You hear this phrase said a lot, “making the world a better place,” but from the messaging at the Esri Annual Conferences to the millions of dollars of free software Esri donates each year to nonprofits/nongovernment organizations (NGOs), Esri not only talks about it, but also they live it as well. As many as 13,000 NGOs from all over the world have used the software to study the Earth’s ecosystems to better protect the environment. This includes projects such as monitoring rainforest destruction, cataloging wetlands, and helping to track water pollution back to its sources. David Yarnold, Audubon president and CEO, has said “It’s hard to imagine any company that has done more for conservation planning than Esri.” STEM education is another area that Esri supports. Esri has pledged $1 billion in STEM software to 100,000 K-12 U.S. schools.
The heart of Esri’s software revolves around ArcGIS family of products. These products allow for spatial analysis, app creation, data production and visualization, remote sensing, and 3D animation. ArcGIS Online is the web-component that provides the backbone to share all this data either publicly and/or just within an organization. The Planned Grocery platform that I mentioned earlier is hosted on Esri’s ArcGIS Online. The data for this app is also updated using ArcGIS Online. For location analysis, ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Online can both be used. If an organization needs to created static maps then they often use ArcGIS Desktop, but if they want to publish an interactive map online, then they often organize the data on ArcGIS Desktop and then publish it out to ArcGIS Online.
Esri’s Business Analyst desktop software is designed specifically for business tasks. Many of these tasks are wizard driven and the software comes loaded with demographic data, major shopping center locations, Tapestry segmentation data, street base maps, business locations, market potential, retail marketplace, and consumer spending. Specific tasks that the software help perform are: site selection, Geocoding, market planning, territory planning, marketing, thematic (color-coded) mapping, gravity modeling, and market analysis. This software comes with technical support, data and software updates, as well as complimentary Esri User Conference registration. If you are looking for demographic data, then Esri is one of the top companies to consider.
The Esri User Conference is held by Esri annually each summer in San Diego. This week-long conference is where Esri makes its latest announcements. They also have many class sessions on how to use the software in different ways and there are many paper presentations on how people are working with the software. This conference is very well done and well attended with around 15,000 people attending from all over the world each year. Aside from the opening day and various classes there is map display social, lightning talks, and a big party on last night.