From my childhood, I was always fascinated about History, History of people, a place or a product. I always felt that History teaches a lot. It lets you assess the path and direction of your destination. In my opinion, all the development and progress that has occurred in human evolution is through study and analysis of history.
ArcGIS is a group of Geographic Information System (GIS) software products produced by ESRI. The product enables visualization and Analysis of Spatial Information at an Enterprise Level. It facilitates collaboration and easy creation of maps, authoring data and serve across desktop, web and mobile platforms.
OK. What has History got to do with a GIS product like ArcGIS? What would we get from knowing that?
Those who observed the technology change and adapted it first got the best out of it. Studying the History of ArcGIS from its Command line PC ArcInfo to current ArcGIS Server Solutions gives us the details of how a product has evolved and changed the way GIS Visualization and Analysis is done.
I think the domination of ESRI products in GIS domain is its Adaptability. Adapting to the latest technologies whether it is with java, DotNet, Python, RDBMS or now the Cloud based solutions, ArcGIS always got integrated with the contemporary technologies which are revolutionary in their own front.
ArcGIS always worked hand in hand with other products. Let’s take the example of RDBMS and the corresponding ESRI Product ArcSDE. I consider ArcSDE as one of the major products that has smashed the competitors of ESRI and took the ESRI products to a whole new level. Its integration with almost any popular RDBMS has provided the required cutting edge for the products to follow.
On the development front ESRI products like ArcIMS, ArcGIS Server and the current Web API for Javascript, Flex and Silverlight are some of the best examples of adaptability. 'ArcIMS Java Viewer' and 'ArcGIS Server Web ADF' has created a lot of buzz and were the most used GIS Web technologies till the Javascript and Rich Internet Application boom.
ESRI Product Evolution:
Esri as a Land Use Consulting firm started its first range of product ArcINFO in the early 80’s. This command based version was thought to be one of the first modern GIS Systems. I am surprised to still hear about the usage of Arc Macro Language (AML) in current times also occasionally. AML is the scripting language for automation of Arc INFO. In parallel to Arc INFO ESRI launched its GUI version ArcView (currently referred as ArcView 3.x)which was a major success.ESRI has combined the power of the two and made a major change in its product family by launching ArcGIS 8 version. ArcGIS 8.x was the most successful version among all ESRI products, which in my opinion has captured the whole market share and ArcIMS in the web based technology front. Then ArcGIS Server was introduced as a powerful Web based mapping platform in version 9 and the product continued to evolve making use of the latest protocols like SOAP, REST etc, and Visualization techniques of Javascript, Ajax and RIA.
PS: I wanted to keep the blog post short & simple (KISS Principle) and this post is just to provide a glance of ArcGIS Product History and its Evolution. For details of the ArcGIS Products please refer to “Introduction to ArcGIS Products” (Coming Soon...).
