THE WEB HAS GONE MAP mad. Ever since Google released easy-to-use software tools for its nifty on-screen maps of streets andsatellite images a year ago, fans have set off an explosion of cre-ative overlaps, adding their own useful and sometimes quirkydata.

One map locates dog-friendly hotels in the U.S., anothertracks taco trucks in Seattle (with photos and health inspectionrecords of the trucks). A map of upcoming Native American

powwows marks each site with a blue eagle feather instead of avirtual pushpin. The Gawker Stalker map of celebrity sightingsin Manhattan got George Clooney so irate he urged people toflood the site with fake posts, Gawker says. Satellite zoom-ups aredriving the popularity of real estate upstart Zillow.com, whereyou can waste hours tracking down how much your neighborspaid for their homes (and what your childhood home now isworth).

Google started this binge on maps and “mash-ups”—loading simple maps with extra informa-tion—last June, and Yahoo and Microsoft’s MSNhave recently helped fuel it with features of theirown. Silicon Valley cartographers held their firstmash-up camp in February in Mountain View,Calif., drawing 300 people; 500 have signed up forthe next one, in mid-July.

All this geographic mania amuses the de factofather of the mapping field: Jack Dangermond,founder and president of Environmental SystemsResearch Institute, the 37-year-old firm that is theMicrosoft of mapping. ESRI, run out of Redlands,Calif., has annual sales of more than $600 millionand is growing at better than 10% a year. It claimsto be one of the largest suppliers of software to thefederal government after Microsoft, Oracle andIBM. It is owned entirely by Dangermond, one offour children born to Dutch immigrants, and hiswife, Laura, who also grew up in a modest home.

TechnologySOFTWARE

Map ManiaFrom Google Earth to tracking the avian flu virus,

map software suddenly is hot tech | By Megha Bahree

æJune 5, 2006

A satellite map of New Orleans, post-Katrina, with areas in mustard color identifiedby FEMA as highly damaged.

map.qxd 6/5/06 11:48 AM Page 1

ESRI’s 300,000 customers include mostfederal agencies, health departments in all50 states in the U.S., the Centers for Dis-ease Control & Prevention, oil andforestry companies and more. ESRI mapsare used in all cars equipped with GeneralMotors’ Onstar service. Its tools also track

cholera and malaria in Bangladesh andIndia, guinea worm in West Africa andWest Nile virus in the U.S. National Geo-graphic parlayed Dangermond’s wares toproduce dozens of interactive Web mapsembedding the location of more than5,000 Civil War battlefields.

E S R I ’ ssof tware’skey strengthis the “clubs a n d w i c h

effect” by which customershandle advanced spatial analy-sis with up to dozens of layersof data from economic, demo-graphic and environmentaldatabases. ESRI street and satel-lite maps can be updated almostinstantaneously as new infor-mation streams in from thefield.

Dangermond is a bit dis-missive of Google’s efforts,viewing its mash-ups as somuch eye candy. Yet ESRI itself,until now focused mainly onhigh-end corporate and gov-ernment clients, is respondingto the Google excitement bymaking its latest software fea-tures available online to themapping masses. “Because ofGoogle Earth,” Dangermondsays, “people became moreaware of ” using geographicinformation systems (GIS), “andthey now understand whatwe’re doing. We’re seeing a lotof business customers realizingthat geography matters, loca-tion matters.”

The low-key Dangermondsays revenue will rise nearly15% this year and will growmore than 20% in each of thenext two years, once ESRIreleases the next big version ofits GIS software. “I’m not tellingyou these numbers because ofWall Street,” says Dangermond.“We don’t march to that kind ofdrummer.” The firm won’t dis-close its profits, but Danger-mond says his operating mar-

gins run around 15%, and the companyplows 20% of revenue into research everyyear.

ESRI’s publicly traded competitors,including MapInfo, Intergraph andAutodesk, are all growing nicely, too, andthey often outhustle ESRI in markets such

TechnologyESRI’s Jack Dangermondwith a planningmap tacked to an office

JOE PU

GLIESE FO

R FO

RB

ES

map.qxd 6/5/06 11:48 AM Page 2

spread of the highly contagious H5N1bird flu virus. To a comprehensive terrainmap of Alaska he adds data on avian fly-ways, urban settlements, hospital loca-tions and climate. This mishmash will lethim decide where to send fieldworkers totest for infected birds, plotting the risk ofthe disease spreading and the chance ofsetting up a secure quarantine.

The state of Pennsylvania used a simi-lar ESRI program in 2001 tocontain a bird flu outbreakon several farms. Within anhour of the dead birds arriv-ing at a lab, health workershad a map of the affectedareas, the types of birds thereand locations of nearbyhomes. Within a month thedepartment had eliminatedany trace of the flu. Lossesand expenses totaled$400,000, down from the$3.5 million spent during anoutbreak in 1997 before thestate used mapping software.

The Arizona Republicuses ESRI software to pin-point for advertisers the best

neighborhoods and residences for theirinserts. It can color-code by education,income, single-family homes or whateverspecifications an advertiser wants. Thismethod has increased revenue from theinsertion business 28% in three years, amiraculous number for print media.

For Dangermond’s customers, loca-tion is everything. “People want the geo-graphic advantage,” he says. a

as direct mail targeting and retail store siteselection. Cox Communication used GISsoftware from MapInfo to combine dataabout its customers, service offerings andbroad demographics to figure out whatproducts to market where and even whereto build its networks next. Within tenminutes of assembling the data, Cox hada decent list of direct mail targets.

ESRI’s rivals have made inroads into itsstronghold in government and publichealth agencies. But its new release, calledArcGIS 9.2, will let any user publish a maponline so it can be revised by another user,like a Google mash-up but with far moresophisticated data sets. The primary inter-face will be a very cool 3-D globe that lets

you zoom around from place to place bysimply entering an address or even aphone number, something you can’t do onGoogle.

Up until now ESRI’s software has beena tool for geo-geeks, many of whom havegone in for some training in GIS. Its mapsare far less sleek and responsive than thesimpler Google and Yahoo maps. Themap on ESRI’s Web site, showing drivingdirections to its headquarters, is inferior toGoogle’s version of the same.

But with the new release ESRI willmake big use of standard Web languagessuch as XML and Java to create maps far easier to use—and more fun—forclients. In one demonstration an ESRIengineer zoomed to within 6 inches of a building rooftop in Los Angeles.Another demo plotted a route fromGreenwich Village to Wall Street in Man-hattan and smoothly flew overhead alongthe route.

Dangermond doesn’t see Google as acompetitor (“We like those guys”), but headmits his software needed to be prettierand quicker. “I’ve watched our softwaregrow for 35 years,” he says, “but thisrelease is more technology than we’ve everreleased in 35 years.”

Falk Huettmann, a wildlife ecologistat the University of Alaska’s Fairbankscampus, uses ESRI software to track the

Technology

How will diseases spread? Top map showsflight paths out of Atlanta. Bottom mapshows one-hour drives from major cities.

A “swipe” tool is used to split a viewbetween a 2-D street map and a high-resolution 3-D image of downtown Los Angeles.

This ESRI map shows the density of 911 calls in SanBernardino, Calif. in relation to ambulance locations over aone-year period. Redder areas show higher call volumes.

A GIS analysis shows affected customersduring a power outage in Riverside, Calif.

map.qxd 6/5/06 11:48 AM Page 3

Posting by Permission of æ Magazine - June 5, 2006 issue © 2006 æ Inc.

Australiawww.esriaustralia.com.au

Belgium/Luxembourgwww.esribelux.com

Bulgariawww.esribulgaria.com

Canadawww.esricanada.com

China (Beijing)www.esrichina-bj.cn

China (Hong Kong)www.esrichina-hk.com

Finlandwww.esri-finland.com

Francewww.esrifrance.fr

Germany/Switzerlandwww.esri-germany.de

www.esri-suisse.ch

Hungarywww.esrihu.hu

Indiawww.esriindia.com

Indonesia/Malaysia62-21-527-1023603-7874-9930

Italywww.esriitalia.it

Japanwww.esrij.com

Koreawww.esrikr.co.kr

Netherlandswww.esrinl.com

Polandwww.esripolska.com.pl

Portugalwww.esri-portugal.pt

Romaniawww.esriro.ro

Singaporewww.esrisa.com

Spainwww.esri-es.com

Swedenwww.esri-sweden.com

Thailandwww.esrith.com

United Kingdomwww.esriuk.com

Venezuelawww.esriven.com

1034736/06sp

Copyright © 2006 ESRI. All rights reserved. ESRI, the ESRI globe logo, @esri.com, and www.esri.com are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of ESRI in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective trademark owners.

ESRI

380 New York Street

Redlands, California

92373-8100, USA

Telephone: 909-793-2853

Fax: 909-793-5953

For more information

on ESRI, call

1-800-447-9778(1-800-GIS-XPRT)

or contact an ESRI value-added

reseller near you.

Send e-mail inquiries to

info@esri.com

Visit ESRI’s Web site at

www.esri.com

Corporate

Outside the United States,

contact your local ESRI distributor.

For the number of your distributor,

call ESRI at 909-793-2853,

ext. 1-1235,

or visit our Web site at

www.esri.com/distributors

ESRI International Offices

ESRI Regional Offices

Boston 978-777-4543

California909-793-2853 ext. 1-1906

Charlotte704-541-9810

Denver 303-449-7779

Minneapolis 651-454-0600

Olympia360-754-4727

Philadelphia 610-644-3374

San Antonio 210-499-1044

St. Louis 636-949-6620

Washington, D.C.703-506-9515

map.qxd 6/5/06 11:48 AM Page 4