Every year or so it seems like Esri gets written up in Forbes. Last week the following came out:
…long before Google was born–even before its founders were born–it was Dangermond who essentially invented the digital map. Esri , the company he founded with his wife, Laura, in 1969, has toiled in relative obscurity to become one of the more improbable powerhouses in tech, having survived wrenching shifts in computing that destroyed scores of its fellow tech pioneers.
Now before you think it is a puff piece like last years, think again. I was surprised in the honest assessment of Esri, Jack’s place in technology and the happiness of Esri employees. Working in the industry we do, we all know the place that Jack and Esri fit within the grow of GIS. The article focuses on Esri but I think it hits upon what everyone is doing, Esri itself, their business parters or those who avoid their software:
“There’s been an explosion of people who think of their research in geospatial terms,” says Julie Sweetkind-Singer, Stanford’s assistant director of Geospatial, Cartographic and Scientific Data & Services.
There has been, it might make “Jack bullish” but it really is built upon the doers of GIS. Visionaries may point the ship in the right direction but those on the ground have turned GIS from a specialized-niche profession into something that is part of almost every workflow imaginable. Read the article, it think it is worth your time.
Spatially Adjusted 