Esri Answers Your Questions

2009 Closing Session

During the week, attendees had the opportunity to pose questions to Jack and senior directors at Esri through video. Attendees voted on their favorites and Esri staff answered the questions during the Closing Session.

What is Esri’s vision after ArcGIS 9.4? What’s next?

Jack Dangermond, Esri President: First we will finish 9.4 (laughter).

Scott Morehouse, Director of Software Development: There won’t be any real fundamental changes in our patterns. We’ll devote more effort to the online environment, specifically posting GIS functionality and building a GIS platform in the cloud. We will also do more across the board in the areas of 3D and spatial analysis.

Nick Frunzi, Director of Educational Services: We will spend time working on Scott's idea from a few years ago—releasing ourselves as a product. We will integrate our software, training, support, and resources as one platform. This includes providing enabling technologies to serve you better, such as scheduled online chats.

Lawrie Jordan, Director of Imagery Enterprise Solutions: On the imagery side of things, we will continue to rapidly pursue innovations and expand our work with our partners.

Clint Brown, Director of Software Products: We want to serve you in a Web 2.0 environment.

What is the future of GIS in Local Government? How will it respond to Local Government Agencies?

Jack: Local governments vary and they use GIS in different patterns—some have desktop, individual users, departmental, or enterprise implementations. We are responding to these usage patterns by providing templates that will promote consistent, standards-based implementations for local governments and other industries as well. GIS professionals will build and serve knowledge throughout their organizations using a server model with rich APIs like Silverlight to create a "GIS–Lite" that is free, embeddable, and can be used to mashup data within the organization. Templates will be powerful tools for GIS professionals as they will be leading this effort.

Jack: Esri is a team of contentious friends that drive and motivate each other. We all love technology and applications and what they bring. I heard someone say something earlier in the week that was inspiring—"Realizing a good idea that really matters." Now that gets me excited!

Bill Derrenbacher, Director of Professional Services: I’m still excited after 39 years of working together with Jack—I still feel challenged to make a difference. We work with highly motivated, charged people who also want to make a difference. This culture allows us to implement great ideas in a real world community as a living organism.

Scott: I’m motivated by building stuff that works while keeping an eye on what’s useful. If you build an airplane, you have to make sure it flies at the end of the runway. I’m satisfied by doing the best we can—the satisfaction of doing a good job.

Why does Esri remain a privately owned company?

Jack: Running a private company is horrible but it’s better than the options. A private company allows us to have a relationship with you— it is all about you. We are not directed by a group of stockholders—we answer to you. We choose to serve you. We can decide what we want to do. We do have problems but we solve them; we are not victimized by the markets and we are not told what to do. Big corporations are not bad, but for whatever reason, we could never do it (laughter).