Last week as part of the ESRI Federal User Conference 2010, ESRI announced a new and existing relationship with Amazon Web Services. Information on this announcement can be found here: http://geo.geek.nz/esri/… There were a few other notes that those interested should be aware of. Very soon we’ll see ArcGIS Server running in the cloud I think this is a significant development and a great move forward from ESRI. Initially ESRI will offer ArcGIS Server Enterprise Advanced v10, along with a few extensions, on AWS. “The ArcGIS Server Amazon Machine Images, hosted in the AWS cloud, will not be...

Many users wonder and ask about ESRI’s position on/and support for open source. As part of the ESRI Speaker Series a new podcast has been posted which covers this topic. Victoria Kouyoumjian discusses ESRI’s position on open source and the importance of open source software in GIS application development. Check out the podcast here:...

With the release of the ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight/WPF 1.1 and ESRI MapIt 1.1, ESRI Parts for Microsoft SharePoint 1.1 was made available for download. ESRI Parts for Microsoft SharePoint 1.1 was a new product offering for those that wanted to integrate rich mapping functionality into their SharePoint sites. Information on this can be found here: http://geo.geek.nz/development/… The ESRI Parts leverage the framework SharePoint provides to offer interactive and configurable mapping components that give you a geospatial view of your organization’s data. The ability to visualize data...

Fresh out of the ESRI Federal User Conference 2010 that kicked off today in Washington, ESRI announced a new and exciting relationship with Amazon Web Services. As part of its commitment to support cloud computing, ESRI is collaborating with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to join the growing community of AWS Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) building services and solutions in the cloud computing environment. As users begin to think about cloud computing this new relationship provides a easy go to option. ESRI is working to make ArcGIS available via the cloud and working with the biggest cloud computing...

The TDC Group has been working hard on their latest offering called Freeance View. Freeance View is a cut down version of Freeance Mobile and like the other Freeance Mobile offerings, Freeance View is specifically designed for the BlackBerry platform. Now there’s no reason not to have your GIS on BlackBerry smartphones. Freeance View software allows any organization running ESRI’s ArcGIS Server to publish their maps live to an unlimited number of BlackBerry smartphones. And it’s free. Create GIS maps on BlackBerry for public use, field workers, executives – anyone. Whether...

Heads up for those ArcPad 8 users. ArcPad 8 Service Pack 3 is now available for download. The ArcPad 8.0 Service Pack 3 addresses specific issues in the ArcPad 8.0 product release related to international language support in ArcPad Studio, Windows 7 compatibility, and drawing performance. There are a bundle of new updates and fixes. SP3 addresses three specific areas: Issues specific to Microsoft Windows 7/Vista Support Foreign language support in ArcPad Studio Performance improvements A full listing of these updates and fixes can be found here: http://downloads2.esri.com/… Note that ArcPad...

Over the last few weeks I have had a few users asking for detailed security requirements for ArcGIS Server 9.3 running on Windows. As such I wanted to remind everyone of a whitepaper that is published on the Enterprise Resource Centre. This document provides a list of security settings required for ArcGIS Server implementations. Most customers will not need to refer to this document, as the default installation steps help manage these settings automatically. This document is primarily for customers who need to manually set security settings in hardened environments. There are four primary areas of...

Ben Riga has recorded a great episode of Lesson Learned where he chats with Rex Hansen. In this episode of Lessons Learned I chat with Rex Hansen of ESRI.  Rex works on MapIt; a product for visualizing enterprise data on maps.  This was recently released as a on-premises product that enables developers to work with the tabular and spatial data in SQL Server 2008 and integrate that data with maps on ArcGIS online and Bing Maps. ESRI MapIt was announced at the Microsoft Worldwide Business Partner Conference 2009. This latest product offering from ESRI is a combination of software and online...

With the theme Map You App, ESRI’s 2010 Mashup Challenge invites memory of the geodeveloper community to stretch their imaginations, test their technical skills and developer creative geospatial applications. The guidelines are simple: construct a mashup using ESRI’s ArcGIS online content and Web APIs, publish the related URL, shoot a video describing the application, and post it on YouTube. The first-place entry will take home $10,000; second place will win $5,000; and third and fourth places will get $2,500 each. Judges will base their selections on uniqueness, utility, user experience, and...

Late last year the registration and call for presentations opened for the ESRI Developer Summit 2010. There are a bundle of changes to the format from last year and full information about this can be found here: http://geo.geek.nz/events/… Now that the call for presentations deadline has passed, community voting for presentations has opened. Community voting is taking place from January 20 through February 7. Over the next two weeks the community will be able to vote for the sessions they would like to see at the ESRI Developer Summit 2010. Voting is easy and simple. You can promote or demote a...