Nearly 1,200 developers from more than 40 countries attended Esri's 2007 Developer Summit held this March in Palm Springs, California.

Based on feedback from last year's successful event, the summit was expanded to three and one-half days with more sessions. "We're here to help you learn about new technology, share best practices that solve your problems, and get your feedback," said ArcGIS program manager Jim McKinney during the Plenary Session. "Esri wants to establish relationships with developers at this summit that will continue throughout the coming years." IBM and Microsoft sponsored this distinctive event focused entirely on developers.

Tuesday's plenary speaker was Scott Morehouse, Esri director of software development and chief software architect and visionary. Morehouse provided development goals for 2007 and covered Esri's high-level philosophy, which focuses on building geographic information systems as a platform technology. The Wednesday keynote speakers were Mark Driver of Gartner Research and Eddie Amos of Microsoft. A vice president and research director, Driver contrasted the strengths and weaknesses of the Java and .NET development environments. Amos, senior director of the Developer and Platform Evangelism Division at Microsoft, presented key computing and technology trends affecting the GIS developer community.

To facilitate and promote direct interaction between Esri staff and developers, the Community Center was equipped with wireless coverage, comfortable furniture, a special area to meet development teams, and Tech Talk areas equipped with whiteboards. All Developer Summit presenters were available to attendees in the Tech Talk areas after their presentations. In addition, development and technical support staff were available in the Esri Showcase to demonstrate technology and address specific questions.

New this year was the ArcGIS Server Code Challenge, where Esri Developer Network (EDN) subscribers and registered attendees voted for their favorite code sample submitted by the GIS developer community. Nineteen entries were received, and the winners were as follows: in first place, Hussein AlSayegh of Khatib & Alami in Manama, Bahrain, received a Trimble Recon GPS XB Edition bundled with ArcPad; in second place, Ranjit Menon of Telvent Miner and Miner in Fort Collins, Colorado, received a Microsoft Xbox 360; Sasa Ivetic of Map It Out, Inc., in Winnipeg, Canada, received a Microsoft Zune; and Honorable Mention went to John Waterman of GCS Research in East Burke, Vermont.

Technical sessions were divided into tracks for server-based applications, mobile applications, desktop applications, ArcWeb Services, geodatabase concepts, and core concepts. Session types included best practices, deep dives, panel discussions, and one road map session. Special interest group meetings covered development topics, including .NET, Java, mobile, ArcWeb Services, defense, and geodigital rights management.

Lively discussions in the Tech Talk areas and overwhelmingly positive postsummit feedback pointed to the high overall value of the summit.

More Information

Developers who were unable to attend can view videos of selected technical sessions in their entirety by visiting the 2007 Highlights area of the Developer Summit Web site at www.esri.com/devsummit.