Extending GIS across the Enterprise Improves Communication and Application Development

Redlands, California—February 17, 2009—In February 2008, Jefferson County, Kansas, with a population of 19,000, joined hundreds of governments that have signed ESRI enterprise license agreements (ELA) to better deliver geographic information system (GIS) software throughout their organizations. Jefferson County chose the Small Municipal and County Government ELA, designed for governments serving up to 100,000 residents.

With the ELA, the county secured unlimited amounts of ESRI ArcGIS software and began to more widely deploy GIS. The appraiser’s office, planning and zoning department, road and bridge department, and emergency management and law enforcement staff had been using GIS but wanted to expand applications to improve operations. The health department began using GIS for the first time.

“The ELA opened up a path for us to move GIS into departments like health and the register of deeds, which wanted it but hadn’t been able to implement it,” says Chris Schmeissner, Jefferson County GIS coordinator and IT director. “It not only erased questions about whether a department could afford to start using GIS but also allowed us to move a lot faster and deploy more licenses—especially on laptops.”

In government, Schmeissner believes GIS should be the portal into all database information. “All our work has spatial content, and people seem to understand and learn so much more quickly and easily when they see things spatially, instead of seeing a spreadsheet full of numbers,” he notes.

In addition to enhancing communication and workflow across the organization, access to unlimited ArcGIS software gives the county IT department improved flexibility for application development. “Before we had the ELA, we didn’t have as much freedom to develop and test applications,” Schmeissner says. “Now our efforts are streamlined, and we are much more nimble.”

About ESRI

Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world’s mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.esri.com


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Emily Vines
ESRI
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