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In a world where storytelling pictographs predate written language by at least 25,000 years, it seems natural that images should have dazzled computer monitors long before lengthy text. In the domain of the binary code, however, words were much simpler to digitize than pictures.

For the past 35 years, ESRI has been in the business of reversing computing's counterintuitive beginnings by introducing increasingly sophisticated, yet easily understood GIS technology.

"This intuitive spatial, geographical representation that we call a map is a language that captures our imagination; that facilitates our imagination," said Jack Dangermond, president of ESRI.

Mission-Critical Mapping
Today, GIS information extends far beyond the traditional GIS community, becoming a fundamental piece of information infrastructure for many organizations.

In fact, ESRI GIS technology now supports more than one million desktop users. ESRI applications also run on more than 50,000 servers, meeting the needs of public-sector agencies responsible for public works, land records, engineering, environmental planning, public safety, facilities management, transportation and health, to name only a few.

And today, when interoperability is the watchword, ESRI's GIS technology embodies the very definition of the term, allowing disparate data sets to be combined to create a complete picture of a given situation.

GIS technology illustrates relationships, connections and patterns that are not obvious in any single data set, allowing public officials to make the best possible decisions based on all relevant facts.

"The minute you understand you can overlay information from one source onto a map from another source, you can truly understand the concept of interoperability between different data sources," said Dangermond. "That's when you understand that GIS is fundamentally about interoperability."

Investigating Interoperability
ESRI technology also embraces and facilitates the concept of interoperability on more complex levels.

"When speaking of GIS interoperability, we have to make the distinction between talking about one GIS interoperating with another; one GIS interoperating with other types of IT; or a third dimension which is GIS as an integrative technology that brings data from many different sources into a common environment," said Dangermond.

ESRI's ArcGIS product is an open systems platform that effectively serves the cause of interoperability on all three levels. The technology provides strong support for .NET and Java. It also supports all data base management systems and multiple operating systems, such as Linux, Microsoft Windows and Sun Solaris. Further, ESRI's ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS Engine implement standards-based GIS business logic in an enterprise server environment.

ESRI's open GIS system allows for the sharing of geographic data, integration among various GIS technologies and integration with other non- GIS applications.

"Using Web services, you can serve up a map and somebody else can read that map into their application as if it were a part of that application," explained Dangermond. "There is a definite movement toward server-based GIS, and that is allowing users to serve maps and spatial analysis into other applications."

Supplying Essential Standards
Because GIS technology has such far-reaching possibilities, ESRI works continually to ensure that its products support practical interoperability standards at both the data and software levels. Now ESRI software is the leading GIS platform for support of IT interoperability standards.

Additionally ESRI commits millions of dollars and an extraordinary number of man-hours to working with its user community to develop standards-based templates for layers and classes of GIS data sets, including stream networks, electrical networks, land records, census, forestry, soils and others.

"By creating standardized template data models, it becomes easy for our users to share their common knowledge," said Dangermond. "ESRI's GIS technology is capable of integrating services and data from multiple sources and in different formats."

Ultimately ESRI GIS technology gives users a deeper understanding of the world around them.

"GIS allows people to view information intuitively through maps, and visualization fuels imagination," said Dangermond. "It helps answer fundamental questions. 'What should we do with this land? How can we help this national forest? How should we plan?' GIS helps us better understand our world, evaluate our world, and it fires our imagination about our world. It's an incredibly powerful tool."