While it held ArcGIS software licenses that provided ArcInfo, ArcView, and ArcGIS Server capabilities, it didn't have some of the powerful extensions provided with the ELA that would help with its expanded GIS workload.

Comments Sarah Barnes, sales associate at ESRI's office in Olympia, Washington, "When we first spoke about the ELA program with Jay Leroux, the GIS specialist for Hillsboro, he was very excited. He understood how much money the city could save, and it didn't take him long to convince the city manager to sign the papers. The ArcGIS software maintenance fee for the city was almost 20 percent higher than the cost of the annual ELA agreement."

With the availability of unlimited access to most of the software found in the ArcGIS suite, costs can be significantly lower than purchasing individual licenses and maintenance agreements, because not only are the software costs lower but maintenance is included in the ELA.

Continues Barnes, "Hillsboro plans to implement multiple ArcGIS Servers for both internal and external work, and the ELA will help them achieve that goal."

 Wayne County, Pennsylvania, Anticipates Expanded Use of GIS

Wayne County took advantage of the ELA program shortly after it was announced at the beginning of January 2008.

Aaron Lankford, GIS coordinator for Wayne County, oversaw the implementation of the county's enterprise-wide GIS in 2005 and the subsequent centralization of its data silos.

"Implementing an enterprise GIS and centralizing the data storage necessitated the increase in users and, subsequently, more software licenses for our system," he says. "The ELA allows us to add new users when we need them. Also, the ArcGIS Server extensions that are available will help us with such things as county emergency operations. For example, if there was a potential flood event, we could generate a model with ArcGIS Spatial Analyst and run iterations of it on the server side of our system. We could then use ArcGIS 3D Analyst for visualization purposes and distribute those results to the relevant agencies.

"In the future, I believe that the ELA will allow us to fully centralize our GIS and involve all county agencies and municipalities in its use."

 Brad Songer, sales associate in ESRI's Philadelphia office, says, "As I speak with staff at local governments in our region, users consistently appreciate how the ELA eliminates incremental spending on technology. Instead, this agreement allows them to approach decision makers one time for funding. The predictable annual fee opens the conversation for long-term strategic planning without the inevitable question, 'What will it cost?' Another strong suit of the ELA is that ESRI includes ample Virtual Campus training credits, which renew annually. Unlimited access to technology is great in and of itself, but the ability to continuously educate new and existing users is equally valuable."

 For more information concerning the Small Municipal and County Government Enterprise License Agreement Program, contact your ESRI U.S. regional office (contact information is available at www.esri.com/usalocations) or call 1-800-447-9778.

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.