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February 21, 2008 ESRI Ushers in New Era of GIS for Small Governments in the United StatesAgencies Cite Immediate Benefits from ELA ProgramRedlands, California—Geographic information system (GIS) software leader ESRI recently announced an enterprise license agreement (ELA) program that provides local governments in the United States with populations of less than 100,000 with wide access to GIS software at an affordable price. Several government agencies have already taken advantage of this program since it was announced last month. The Small Municipal and County Government ELA Program makes available deployments of ESRI's full complement of ArcGIS software and extensions. The three-tier pricing schedule is based on population. The city of Hillsboro, situated in the center of Oregon's Silicon Forest, and Wayne County, located in the rural northeast corner of Pennsylvania, are distinct in character and location, but both quickly recognized the potential savings provided by the program. Comments Chris Cappelli, ESRI's director of sales, "The program was developed because we know that small governments in the United States have limited budgets but can really benefit from the use of GIS technology. And you do not have to be an existing ESRI customer to take advantage of the ELA. It is available to all small governments in the United States of populations less than 100,000." According to Chris Thomas, ESRI's industry manager for state and local government, "The average-sized jurisdiction in the United States is around 10,000 people. While there is a notion that GIS is more appropriate for a large metropolitan area, that really isn't the case. The challenges faced by a small jurisdiction are the same as those faced by a larger one. It's just a matter of scale. Today, there are literally thousands of small jurisdictions throughout the United States that are using our software." City of Hillsboro, Oregon, Increases Software Access while Reducing Costs While it held ArcGIS software licenses that provided ArcInfo, ArcView, and ArcGIS Server capabilities, it didn't have some of the powerful extensions provided with the ELA that would help with its expanded GIS workload. Comments Sarah Barnes, sales associate at ESRI's office in Olympia, Washington, "When we first spoke about the ELA program with Jay Leroux, the GIS specialist for Hillsboro, he was very excited. He understood how much money the city could save, and it didn't take him long to convince the city manager to sign the papers. The ArcGIS software maintenance fee for the city was almost 20 percent higher than the cost of the annual ELA agreement." With the availability of unlimited access to most of the software found in the ArcGIS suite, costs can be significantly lower than purchasing individual licenses and maintenance agreements, because not only are the software costs lower but maintenance is included in the ELA. Continues Barnes, "Hillsboro plans to implement multiple ArcGIS Servers for both internal and external work, and the ELA will help them achieve that goal." Wayne County, Pennsylvania, Anticipates Expanded Use of GIS Aaron Lankford, GIS coordinator for Wayne County, oversaw the implementation of the county's enterprise-wide GIS in 2005 and the subsequent centralization of its data silos. "Implementing an enterprise GIS and centralizing the data storage necessitated the increase in users and, subsequently, more software licenses for our system," he says. "The ELA allows us to add new users when we need them. Also, the ArcGIS Server extensions that are available will help us with such things as county emergency operations. For example, if there was a potential flood event, we could generate a model with ArcGIS Spatial Analyst and run iterations of it on the server side of our system. We could then use ArcGIS 3D Analyst for visualization purposes and distribute those results to the relevant agencies. "In the future, I believe that the ELA will allow us to fully centralize our GIS and involve all county agencies and municipalities in its use." Brad Songer, sales associate in ESRI's Philadelphia office, says, "As I speak with staff at local governments in our region, users consistently appreciate how the ELA eliminates incremental spending on technology. Instead, this agreement allows them to approach decision makers one time for funding. The predictable annual fee opens the conversation for long-term strategic planning without the inevitable question, 'What will it cost?' Another strong suit of the ELA is that ESRI includes ample Virtual Campus training credits, which renew annually. Unlimited access to technology is great in and of itself, but the ability to continuously educate new and existing users is equally valuable." For more information concerning the Small Municipal and County Government Enterprise License Agreement Program, contact your ESRI U.S. regional office (contact information is available at www.esri.com/usalocations) or call 1-800-447-9778. # # # Press Information: |
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