ESRI/SAP News Around the Globe, Fall 2008

In This Issue

• ESRI/SAP News
• ESRI Corporate Alliance News
• Product News
• GIS in Action
• ESRI in the News
• Marketing Opportunities

ESRI/SAP News

GIS and SAP: Integration Touch Points, Benefits, and Approaches [Login Required]
Americas' SAP Users' Group (ASUG) members are invited to view this archived webcast on how GIS is being used to extend and enhance utility business processes and how it is increasingly becoming a necessary component of the SAP enterprise landscape. GIS has been used at utilities for many years for a wide variety of mission-critical and supporting applications. This session addresses major business processes and application touch points between SAP and GIS, the benefits derived from integration, and the evolution and future of integration approaches.

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ESRI Corporate Alliance News

Citrix/ESRI Webinar [Registration Required]
Listen to this archived webinar to learn best practices from a savvy customer optimizing ESRI's GIS applications on Citrix software to provide fast, secure, and streamlined access for its employees and mobile workforce. Senior IT professionals from the Southwest Florida Water Management District host a "deep dive" into the Citrix implementation for GIS and share key strategies for improving performance, security, and productivity within the IT infrastructure.

IBM Podcast: Storage and Management of Spatial Data on an IBM System z Mainframe
Listen to an interview with Dan Wardman, vice president of Information Management Software, and Frank Butt, manager, DB2 for z/OS Query Runtime, tech search, and spatial support for IBM. The topic is the storage and management of spatial data on an IBM System z mainframe. Read More. [PDF]

SQL Server 2008 Offers Highly Demanded Access to Spatial Data Types
Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 allows storage of spatial data in SQL tables, which means that a geodatabase implemented on SQL Server 2008 will be able to store vector geometry in either Geography or Geometry spatial type. This new functionality is the result of a close, multiyear collaboration between ESRI and Microsoft and is a solution to the most highly demanded user request over the last two years.

Microsoft Virtual Earth Offered with ESRI's ArcGIS Online Services
ESRI and Microsoft recently announced the availability of ArcGIS Online Virtual Earth maps collection. A result of the two companies' long-standing history of collaborating to bring users complete geographic information system solutions, this new integration includes high-resolution street maps, imagery, and hybrid maps. Street map coverage is available for more than 60 countries and regions including North America, Europe, South America, the Asia Pacific region, and Northern Africa. The Virtual Earth maps collection is available to ArcGIS Online 9.3 premium services subscribers. Trial subscriptions for both online premium services and Virtual Earth maps collection are now available.

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Product News

Business Analyst 9.3 Desktop Solution Now Available
This extension to ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 allows businesses, organizations, and government agencies of all sizes to answer location-related site selection and marketing questions. Improved functionality at 9.3, based on client feedback, promotes user productivity through a variety of general enhancements plus streamlined software installation and better documentation. Business Analyst is available with U.S. and Canadian data. Learn more.

ArcPad 7.1.1 and ArcPad Application Builder 7.1.1 Now Available
The latest versions of ESRI's mobile GIS software for field mapping and data collection have been released. New improvements enhance the user experience by increasing productivity and ease of use in the field, allowing mobile users to make decisions more quickly and accurately.

ESRI's 2008 Community Sourcebook Products Deliver Accurate U.S. Demographic Data
Experts and students across all industry sectors can now have access to the most accurate demographic data with the 2008 Sourcebook products. ESRI has published the softcover editions of Community Sourcebook of ZIP Code Demographics and Community Sourcebook of County Demographics, as well as the Community Sourcebook - America with ArcReader CD-ROM, all of which include ESRI's 2008/2013 demographic updates and projections for data variables such as population, age distribution, and income.

ArcGIS Online Premium Services Now Available The following ArcGIS Online premium services
are now available for evaluation and purchase: USA Prime/World bundle, USA Prime Imagery, and Virtual Earth maps. ArcGIS users can evaluate these services for 14 days or purchase annual subscriptions.

BusinessMAP Financial 2 Offers Updated Maps and Financial Services Data
Designed to address the specific needs of financial services professionals, BusinessMAP Financial 2 includes both data and feature updates and allows users to perform tasks, such as ring studies and drive-time and demographic analyses, which help them visualize demographics and market potential better than they can with conventional databases and spreadsheets. Additionally, the 25 report templates that are included allow users to understand demographics and market potential like never before.

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GIS in Action

2008 ESRI International User Conference Proceedings Online
The Proceedings of the 28th Annual ESRI International User Conference (ESRI UC) is a compilation of professional abstracts and papers presented by ESRI software users August 4-8, 2008, in San Diego, California. These papers comprise a fundamental part of the conference by providing examples of how GIS is used in diverse ways.

California Lake Threatened by Pike
For more than 10 years, the California Department of Fish and Game has been trying to eradicate Lake Davis of northern pike, an invasive species illegally introduced to this large Sierra Nevada reservoir. Previous attempts, employing a variety of techniques, had proven unsuccessful. Now, a piscicide treatment alternative using GIS and GPS technology as integral parts of project planning, implementation and posttreatment monitoring has been employed. If successful, portions of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta; the Feather, Sacramento, and San Joaquin river systems, and other waters in California will be spared irreversible damage to their native fish populations.

Search and Rescue Teams Rely on GIS to Locate Lost Hikers
The San Bernardino County, California, Search and Rescue (SAR) team relies heavily on GIS in its mission. The technology is increasingly being adopted by SAR teams worldwide, as its effectiveness has proven invaluable in successfully completing the hard work these teams face. Search management is also greatly improved with GIS applications, positively impacting searcher safety and documentation requirements and tracking search assets.

Nashua, New Hampshire, uses Capturx and GIS on Earth Day
This year, the City of Nashua brought its sophisticated GIS mapping system out of the office to turn untrained Earth Day volunteers into GIS analysts. They worked with Capturx for ArcGIS Desktop, digital pen-and-paper collaboration software from Seattle-based Adapx. The software lets users of ESRI ArcGIS Desktop software collect GIS data with a digital pen and paper. They use the pen to make field annotations on paper maps, then upload that information, via computer, directly into ESRI's ArcGIS software. The digital pen stores data and, once docked in its station, transforms it into geodatabase features. This makes handwritten GIS information instantly available in a digital format and ready to share.

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ESRI in the News

GIS Helps Bolster Hurricane Preparation and Response
Using ArcGIS software and Web GIS services from ESRI, federal, local, and state agencies were able to more effectively prepare for the impact of Hurricane Gustav recently in the gulf coast region. GIS enabled more thorough understanding of what was happening both before and after the hurricane hit land, enabling staff to make critical decisions for responding most effectively.

Colonial Pipeline Uses ESRI GIS to Study Delivery of Ethanol by Pipeline
A mandate by the federal government for ethanol fuel production gave rise to Colonial Pipeline's interest in determining whether alternative fuels could be delivered by pipeline shipments. The company currently maintains a 5,500-mile underground network of pipeline from Houston to New York through which it delivers refined petroleum products. Ethanol's chemical properties present unique challenges to the use of pipeline delivery systems over the existing rail and road alternatives. Colonial, already a user of GIS software by ESRI, recognized the opportunity it provided to create a framework for understanding every element of a particular situation to determine the feasibility of delivering ethanol by pipeline.

Loma Linda University Medical Center Implements Emergency Response System Using ESRI's ArcGIS
ESRI's ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Mobile provide the backbone for the advanced emergency GIS (AEGIS) now being used by Loma Linda University Medical Center in Southern California. This Web-based hospital situational-awareness system monitors and maps the location and status of emergency resources including area hospitals, ambulances, and rescue helicopters. AEGIS deployment is also serving as a model disaster-response management system not only for other communities in the United States but also for the U.S. military.

ESRI Trend Analysis 2008/2013 [PDF]
In a new report, ESRI demographer Lynn Wombold writes about housing market trends; the credit crunch; and demographic changes related to baby boomers, Generation Y, and the Hispanic population. She also explains what's new in the 2008/2013 data updates for users of ArcGIS Business Analyst products. Read the white paper [PDF]. Listen to an interview with Wombold [MP3].

Podcast: 2008 ESRI UC Plenary Opening [MP3]
Listen to Jack Dangermond, president of ESRI, welcome attendees to the 2008 ESRI UC. Illustrating the conference theme, GIS: Geography in Action, Dangermond talked about the importance of GIS as part of the solution to the challenge of living in a sustainable world and highlighted the works of GIS users around the world. Dangermond presented GIS awards to the State of Qatar, Centre for GIS; the City of Philadelphia; and Rosario Giusti de Pérez and Ramón A. Pérez, Venezuelan architects and urban planners

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Marketing Opportunities

2009 ESRI UC Call for Presentations
Abstracts are now being accepted for the 2009 ESRI UC, scheduled for July 13-17, in San Diego, California. Collaborating with your customers on a paper submission provides a unique way to showcase your products and services to the more than 14,000 attendees expected at next year's conference. Abstracts are also being accepted for the Education User Conference and the Survey & Engineering GIS Summit, which will take place concurrently July 11-14 in San Diego. The submission deadline for all abstracts is November 14, 2008.

For submission guidelines, answers to frequently asked questions, and other details, visit www.esri.com/uc or contact the papers team at papers@esri.com.

2009 ESRI FedUC - Important Information
November 7, 2008, is the deadline to submit an abstract for the ninth annual ESRI Federal User Conference (FedUC). With more than 1,900 federal GIS users expected to attend, a paper on which you have collaborated with your customers is an excellent forum to introduce and highlight your products and services.

Sponsor and exhibitor opportunities are also available. A platinum sponsorship affords many marketing benefits including a podcast interview promoting your products and services that's posted to the ESRI Speaker Series and ESRI FedUC Web pages.

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