August 14, 2008

2008 ESRI User Conference - The Numbers and some notable quotables

Always of interest, the following are some interesting numbers that were mentioned during sessions at the 2008 International ESRI User Conference
  • 14,000+ – attendees at the 2008 EC (I also heard 15,000!)
  • 120 countries represented
  • 160 – SAG awards handed out
  • 35 – years worth of Landsat data archives available for free to public from USGS
  • 28 – members in Geospatial advisory committee to the DOI
  • 1 – the #1 ArcGIS timesaver new at ArcGIS 9.3 is error reporting
  • 30 – up to 30% fuel consumption saved by city of Fort Collins using ArcLogistics for fleet management.
  • 100 – ESRI Press has published 100 books
  • 90 – ESRI Tech support reports a 90% response time improvement
  • 9.4 – ArcGIS 9.4 is as simple as drawing on a map!
  • 2.0 - The web 2.0 povides a lightweight simple programming model, simple tools like Javascript, Flex, soap, xml, python
  • 3 - 3 new APIs for 9.3 with 150 script samples.. you can see the code and run it. Imagine, view source, copy, use in your own apps.
  • 7.1.1 – Streetmap extension data extractor coming at r 7.1.1

And... always fun, the following are some notable tidbits that I overheard or picked up on at the UC - enjoy!

  • Does the government get it? Yes they do and they use GIS
  • GIS will be a pervasive part of all human action
  • ArcGIS is spatializing Adobe PDFs
  • This is only the beginning of the geospatial era
  • ArcGIS server is increasing the value of imagery
  • ArcGIS Explorer is GIS for everyone
  • Resources.esri.com – the resource center, use it!
  • The role of the GIS pro will be to: Exploit high quality authoritative info and Make it consumable by publishing to the web.
  • Author, Serve, Use… that’s the foundation for ArcGIS
  • Smashups – simply put, this is using rich services from ArcGIS server in your mashup

And here's a picture that's worth a thousand words... polar ice cap as see in 1979 (left) compared to 2007... amazing! It's no wonder the polar bear is now on the endangered species list. Image from speech provided by US DOI secretary Dirk Kempthorn

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