ESRI Goes “Back to the Future” with ArcGIS 10 #feduc

In what could be called ESRI’s vision for going "Back to the Future" Jack Dangermond delivered both a typical philosophical address on GIS and a roadmap for new software solution enhancements for ArcGIS 10 that includes cloud computing, community sourced collaboration and advanced search. His comments on the next generation of products were delivered at the annual ESRI Federal User’s Conference in Washington DC.

Why "Back to the Future?" Because Dangermond’s direction for ESRI products includes elements of past vision and Web 2.0 plus the call to make things "easier to use." In fact, it might have been more appropriate to identify ArcGIS 10 (formerly ArcGIS 9.4) as ArcGIS 2.0.

Dangermond’s vision has been clearly influenced by Gov 2.0 initiatives and the likes of Vivek Kundra (Obama’s Federal CIO) and Tim O’Reilly (publisher and futurist)... or perhaps it’s the other way around. You see, Dangermond has the ability to deliver on vision; not just prognosticate. Hence, ArcGIS 10 will be "cloud ready by supporting Amazon cloud services, and embed an advanced search feature capable of reaching down for files locally or on the web.

"GIS is changing; more web focused; easier, more pervasive. A new vision for GIS is emerging; this is an easier GIS; more accessible and more inclusive of everybody; it uses cloud computing and data sharing… It is empowering you, the professional, and putting in your hands the ability to spread that knowledge to others. Agencies are on a path and delivering their data as services; map services; data services; that are RESTFUL; and new app stores that are geospatially focused," said Dangermond.

Dangermond addressed the concept of "government as a platform" to support business and other services sectors; an idea that is pervasive in the Obama administration. And in discussing some of the features of ArcGIS 10 Dangermond said, "we integrated features in our base software with new ways to access cloud computing…It’s the same but also different: Full 3d GIS; 3d analytics; it’s time aware; it has an integrated search tool [so the user can] search for apps or services to drag into applications. It’s cloud ready and supports IBM"s notion of enterprise clouds."

So, ArcGIS 10 becomes an extension of Dangermond’s intent to make geography the basic contextual discipline for organizing global phenomena and data. It’s something that he’s believed in doing for many years and continues to hammer home to users.