Quality – 9.2 is the most tested release ever to leave Redlands. We have had a very extensive Alpha, Beta, and Pre-release program with both in house and external unit level and holistic testing. Literally thousands of software issues have been addressed in 9.2.
Server – ArcGIS Server 9.2 will turn out to be a major event in the history of ESRI. This, I believe, will be a very important step in a major shift of GIS from desktop to server architectures. With new out of the box clients, easier administration and a set of functionality that comes close to matching the desktop, Server will be a compelling way to deliver GIS capabilities to users inside and outside organizations.
Desktop – a lot of effort has gone into end user usability and productivity. There are many, many small UI enhancements that collectively make the software much easier to use. There is no getting away from the fact that ArcGIS Desktop is a large and sophisticated application, but we have tried our best to simplify the user experience.
Documentation – in previous releases users have repeatedly asked for higher level documentation that provides a more task-based description of how to use the software. The organization and content of the printed books and on-line help system reflects this new approach. Many people learn GIS by using ArcGIS and so we need to provide the essential foundations in the doc that enable them to be successful.
Product integration – in an attempt to reduce the number of products and to make it easier to deploy ArcGIS we have integrated all the main ESRI server products into a single ArcGIS Server platform. ArcGIS Server 9.2 has six levels based on two types of capacity (workgroup and enterprise) and three types of functionality (Basic [data management], Standard [data management + mapping and publishing], Advanced [data management + mapping and publishing + editing, geoprocessing and mobile].
ArcGIS On-line – a part of 9.2 is not being ‘shipped’ to users but will reside permanently on ESRI servers. This includes the on-line documentation and a set of web services that combine data and functionality. These 2D and 3D services can be used from the desktop, the new ‘geobrowser’ – ArcGIS Explorer – or the new browser-based web mapping application. I think we will see much more of the product on-line in the future.
Spatial analysis and modeling – I covered this in an earlier blog posting, but for completeness I want to remind everyone that we are serious about continuing to advance the analysis and modeling capabilities of our GIS platform. ArcGIS 9.2 supports iteration, randomization and better animation, thus enabling simulation and sensitivity analysis. The geoprocessing capabilities are now exposed in desktop, engine and server.
Mobile GIS – the new ArcGIS Server Mobile ADF (application developer framework) has not yet got the attention that I think it deserves. This is a developer toolkit that can be used to build very fast, lightweight and quite rich clients for Server. The clients can be deployed in a connected or partially connected mode. We have implemented a nice data caching framework that makes it easy to use enterprise databases easily and provides excellent performance.
Enterprise GIS – ESRI is definitely trying to be an enterprise software company. ArcGIS 9.2 has been extended to work well in the enterprise context. We built it using standards-based IT technology etc., we provide a number of enterprise connection points within the software (new geodatabase SQL API on Oracle, SOAP/XML web services interfaces, .Net and Java developer APIs, and many data interoperability options). Another key capability of 9.2 is the ability to execute transactions against geodatabases stored in a DBMS using a short transaction model (non-versioned API). This makes it much easier for external systems to work with geographic information.
Standards and interoperability – although we have always been strong advocates for open systems, at 9.2 we have made a much more conscious effort to support key standards. This includes the internal use of the ISO 191** family (e.g. spatial schemas, simple feature access and coordinate references), and the OGC W*S family of standards for service interoperability (e.g. WMS, WFS, GML and Catalog Interface). Moreover, the data interoperability extension allows users to read and write over 100 GIS formats.
What next? We are now in the planning phase for the next releases of ArcGIS and I invite you to email me at dmaguire@esri.com with any comments about ArcGIS 9.1/9.2 and any suggestions for future releases.