? Your Questions www.esri.com ? ? ? ? ? ? Esri's answers on trends and technology Q: What is the meaning behind this year's user conference theme, Geography–Opening the World to Everyone? When Stewart Brand lobbied the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to release the first photograph of earth taken from space in the 1960s, he knew that photograph would have a tremendous impact in changing the way we viewed the environment and our relationship with it. Today, anyone with Internet access can get a similar view of the earth, and then quickly zoom in to the level of their city, their neighborhood, and even their home. This near-universal access to geographic knowledge is revolutionizing our ability to understand how our world works physically, biologically, and culturally. David Harvey said, "Geography is too important to be left to geographers." The combination of increased availability of geographic knowledge and easier access through mobile devices and the Internet is opening the world of geographic knowledge to everyone. And the democratization of geographic knowledge—both its widespread use and its universal creation— is resulting in a new kind of infrastructure: a geospatial infrastructure. Over time, society will become increasingly dependent upon this geospatial infrastructure, much as it has become dependent on other, more traditional forms of infrastructure such as electrical grids or highway networks. GIS is the technology we have come to rely on to operate this infrastructure of geographic knowledge. And GIS professionals will be increasingly relied on to build and maintain this infrastructure. Continued on page 60 User Every year, Esri asks users who are attending the Esri International User Conference about their interests and concerns and how Esri is doing. The results of this survey help Esri plan software development and make decisions on how to prioritize its efforts. Generalized answers to questions posed by users are compiled and shared with users prior to the conference. Of the more than 200 answers about Esri's strategy and vision for its products in the coming year from this year's Q&A, this sample highlights important trends and developments. To read all the answers, visit events.esri.com/uc/QandA/index.cfm? ConferenceID=2F6DC1A1-14222418-883C3868A9004888. Q: What are the key new features of ArcGIS Server 10? ArcGIS Server 10 includes powerful new capabilities and enhancements. Here are the highlights: Web editing: ArcGIS Server includes built-in capabilities for Web editing, enabling geo-collaboration workflows, crowd sourcing, and volunteered geographic information applications. Web editing is made possible through a new editing service called a feature service and is available through all clients including Web browsers (JavaScript, Flex, Silverlight), mobile devices (iPhone, Windows Mobile, and later in the year through Android), and desktops (ArcEditor, ArcInfo). Better mapping and enhanced map services: Cartographic representations and Maplex are now supported by optimized map services, allowing you to accelerate the creation of map caches and render your data on the fly. ArcGIS Server 10 map services now also expose geodatabase relationship classes, attachments, and stand-alone tables. Finally, map services now handle temporal data, so you can easily create map animations in your Web mapping applications. Improved map caches: A new map cache format called compact cache speeds up the creation of map caches and dramatically simplifies management of very large caches. More out-of-the-box Web mapping applications: Two new applications in ArcGIS.com allow for quick creation and dissemination of ArcGIS Server mashups: readyto-use Microsoft SharePoint Web Parts and ArcGIS Viewer for Flex, a new configurable out-of-the-box application. Enhanced geoprocessing framework: This includes out-of-the-box models for clip/zip/ ship workflows as well as high-quality map generation (output to PDF format) and new network solvers. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) deployment: The Amazon EC2 provides ArcUser Fall 2010 59 ?