ESRI/IBM Connections, Spring 2009

Welcome to ESRI/IBM Connections, a quarterly electronic newsletter highlighting news and events about how ESRI and IBM deliver GIS-based solutions across the enterprise for our government and commercial customers. If you know someone who would like to be updated on the latest events regarding ESRI, please have them subscribe by visiting www.esri.com/ibmconnections.

In This Issue

• ESRI/IBM News
• ESRI/IBM Events
• ESRI Training
• Product News
• ESRI News
• GIS in Action
• Marketing Opportunities

ESRI/IBM News

Egypt Uses GIS for New Parcel-Based Deeds Registry
The Egyptian government recognizes the long-term economic benefit of bringing currently unregistered private properties into the formal property registration system. With encouragement from a rising middle class that increasingly wants to take advantage of mortgages, Egypt is streamlining the process and replacing the manual registry index in Cairo with a parcel-based deeds registration system linked to a digital cadastre using GIS technology from ESRI and IBM’s DB2 database management system.

New IBM Spatial Services Team [PDF]
In response to growing customer needs for GIS services around ESRI and IBM solutions, IBM Global Business Services (GBS) has created a new spatial services consulting team. This team is being deployed initially to meet the service needs of IBM Maximo customers implementing the new Maximo Spatial solution in ArcGIS. In the first six months of formation, ESRI has worked with the IBM team to provide focused training in ArcGIS software, as well as best-practice support for geodatabase administration, Web-mapping performance optimization, and geospatially enabled service-oriented architecture (SOA). The IBM spatial services team is now supporting joint customer projects in local government, airports, and electric utilities.

ArcGIS Now Integrated with IBM Cognos
The integration of ArcGIS software with business intelligence and performance management software provides customers with critical new capability to support measurement-centric workflows and business dashboards. This capability is relevant to health care, social services, and customer service workflows involving high volumes of data and is particularly relevant in current U.S. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus tracking and reporting.

ESRI Canada Limited partner SpotOn Systems has developed Vantage, new technology that extends IBM Cognos and integrates ArcGIS. With Vantage, professional ArcGIS Desktop users can link directly to Cognos business data. Alternatively, Cognos users now have the capability, delivered by ArcGIS Server, to integrate mapping and geoprocessing into Cognos reporting and dashboard environments. The result is a fully linked set of mapping visualization and business objects within the Cognos dashboard.

Back to Top

ESRI/IBM Events

ESRI at IBM IMPACT 2009
ESRI was at the recent IBM IMPACT 2009 show in Las Vegas, Nevada, to showcase ESRI and IBM’s technology integration with WebSphere and geospatially enabled SOA. This event, specifically geared toward SOA professionals, featured three designated Smart SOA tracks: Aligning IT and Business, Business, and Technology. ESRI representatives demonstrated integrated solutions during the show and dedicated time to answer questions.

ESRI at IBM Cognos Forum 2009
At the recent IBM Cognos Forum in Orlando, Florida, ESRI demonstrated new integration capabilities and workflows between ESRI ArcGIS and IBM Cognos software. The event offered attendees timely and actionable results, especially in a challenging economy, showing how business intelligence and performance management tools save organizations time and money and apply enterprise-wide risk assessment models that enable smarter decision making.

ESRI at IBM Information On Demand 2009
Visit ESRI at IBM Information On Demand, October 25–29, in Las Vegas, Nevada, to learn more about ESRI and IBM technology integration with IBM DB2, Informix, and Cognos business intelligence software. ESRI’s spatial information management support for DB2 on z/OS will be featured at the conference. For your convenience, schedule an appointment during the show.

Back to Top

ESRI Training

Free Seminar: Creating Effective Web Maps
With the ability to easily build fast, modern Web maps, you can quickly demonstrate impact on the business using Web GIS. Configurable solutions add value to all business units, allowing any GIS professional to put geospatial technologies into practice. Through June, ESRI will be conducting a free seminar series to help users in the quest to make more effective Web maps. This seminar will be presented throughout the United States. Find a location.

Back to Top

Product News

ArcGIS Business Analyst Server 9.3 Speeds Business Intelligence
ESRI's release of ArcGIS Business Analyst Server 9.3 brings an enterprise solution for collaborative business geographics to the marketplace. It enables the creation, sharing, and deployment of workflows and analyses across entire organizations, allowing more sophisticated business models and intelligence to be developed cooperatively. With this recent release, ArcGIS Business Analyst Server has been expanded by adding more reports, data, and flexibility to the application while reducing its resource consumption.

ArcPad 8 Now Shipping
ArcPad 8 includes new capabilities, performance improvements, and quality enhancements. ArcPad Application Builder, the development framework used to customize ArcPad, is now included with every ArcPad 8 license. ArcPad is now a maintenance-based product, and customers may subscribe to annual maintenance to get ArcPad updates and technical support. ArcPad evaluation software is available for download at no cost.

Add Geocoding, Routing, and High-Quality Cartographic Display to ArcGIS with ESRI's StreetMap Premium
The new version of ESRI's StreetMap Premium, an enhanced street dataset that works with ESRI’s ArcGIS software to provide geocoding, routing, and high-quality map display, includes expanded coverage and more licensing options. The enhanced dataset now gives users of ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Desktop access to street data for the United States, Canada, and Europe that is tailored to their specific needs and geographic regions. The ready-to-use datasets, based on data from NAVTEQ, include streets and road networks as well as basemap data.

Back to Top

ESRI News

New Yorkers Reinvent Themselves
Household income data produced by ESRI reveals that the Big Apple is feeling a serious bite. Particularly, high-income households have been dramatically impacted, and the decline in income for the state is expected to continue through 2009. As a result of this unprecedented economic situation, workers are exploring dramatic career changes.

ESRI Installs Solar Panels to Generate Power at Headquarters
ESRI recently commissioned the installation of 2,737 rooftop solar panels on three office buildings at its main campus in Redlands, California, as part of its continuing efforts to offset energy usage. In line with its goal to be carbon neutral, ESRI maintains a fleet of electric vehicles and reduces cooling costs with strategically planted shade trees.

Back to Top

GIS in Action

Podcast: Leveraging GIS in a Down Economy [MP3]
Simon Thompson, ESRI's director of commercial business industry solutions, discusses the state of the GIS market in the current economy. Despite the downturned economy, businesses are turning to GIS as an analysis tool to explore options that will help them survive and prosper in a very challenging economic environment. Recognizing that better insight provides better foresight, ESRI’s tools for business are enabling more confident decision making.

How GIS Is Being Used by the State of California
As California’s first geospatial information officer, Michael Byrne recently shared his vision for how GIS would most significantly be used in his state. The top three priorities include implementing homeland security strategies; development of policies, procedures, and standards; and aligning the set of business investors who will ultimately fund the future of GIS in the state toward a common set of goals. Byrne explains his role as GIO in this video.

Petroleum Experts Weigh Advantages of Web GIS Technology
The recent ESRI Petroleum User Group (PUG) Conference in Houston, Texas, was a gathering that dealt with spatial challenges specific to petroleum industry needs. Though some demands are limited to that industry, there are demands common to all industries, including working smarter and leveraging technology to do so. ESRI's technical experts demonstrated three non-industry-specific trends in GIS: Web GIS, mobile technologies, and cloud-based computing.

Back to Top

Marketing Opportunities

ESRI Business GIS Summit to Coincide with ESRI 2009 International User Conference
In response to feedback from our customers and prospective customers about budget constraints for travel and conference attendance, ESRI has moved its Business GIS Summit to July 12–15 in San Diego, California. The dates and location will enable commercial and retail attendees to cost-effectively participate in opportunities that are exclusive to both the Business GIS Summit and the ESRI International User Conference, providing a great return on investment (ROI). Learn more and register.

Back to Top