Attendees obtain valuable insight on how geospatial solutions can transform their organizations and countries

HOOFDORP, NL, Nov. 13, 2008 – Geospatial software and services leader Intergraph® recently welcomed record numbers of customers and partners to its user conferences in Eastern Europe to experience the latest in Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) technology. 

More than 500 GIS professionals from the government, defense and intelligence, public safety, utilities, communications, cartography, transportation and photogrammetry sectors attended Intergraph events to learn about the evolution of SDI and the impact of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) directive from the European Parliament on the geospatial market. 

INSPIRE is designed to standardize spatial information services in the various EU Member States to improve policy-making in areas including the environment, transport, energy and agriculture. Intergraph has been directly involved with the INSPIRE initiative since 2005 and has been a recognized leader in the SDI industry since 1994 when it co-founded the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), an international standards organization for geospatial and location based services.

Intergraph also directly participates in projects based on various INSPIRE related European Commission programs, including the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES, HUMBOLDT project), eContentplus (GIS4EU, EURADIN, eSDI-Net+, NATURE-SDIplus projects), Shared Environment Information System (SEIS, CAFÉ project) and the European Security Research Programme (ESS project).

The traditional Intergraph user meetings were held in Croatia, Romania, Hungary and the Czech and Slovak republics. The inaugural Intergraph South Eastern Europe Partner Summit attracted 50 representatives of existing and new business partners, coming also from additional countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Israel, Kosovo, Serbia and Slovenia.

“As a pioneer in the geospatial industry, Intergraph has supported the economical and political transformation of Eastern Europe, a region of over 90 million citizens, for almost 20 years through major national and local government and commercial geospatial solutions and projects,” said Grzegorz Wisniewski, Intergraph’s vice president and regional manager for Eastern Europe and the Nordic regions. “The high attendance at our Eastern European user meetings is a testament to our success in these efforts and the impact we have made and continue to make on our customers.”

In addition to the events in Eastern Europe, Intergraph has also recently held user conferences in Western Europe, the UK, the Americas and in the Asia Pacific region attracting more than 3,000 geospatial and enterprise engineering professionals.

About INSPIRE
INSPIRE is a directive of the European Parliament and the Council (2007/2/EC) aiming to assist policy making in relation to activities that may have a direct or indirect impact on the environment. INSPIRE is based on the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) that are created by the Member States and that are made compatible with common implementing rules, supplemented with measures at the community level.

About Intergraph
Intergraph is the leading global provider of engineering and geospatial software that enables customers to visualize complex data. Businesses and governments in more than 60 countries rely on Intergraph’s industry-specific software to organize vast amounts of data into understandable visual representations and actionable intelligence. Intergraph’s software and services empower customers to build and operate more efficient plants and ships, create intelligent maps, and protect critical infrastructure and millions of people around the world.

Intergraph operates through two divisions: Process, Power & Marine (PP&M) and Security, Government & Infrastructure (SG&I).  Intergraph PP&M provides enterprise engineering software for the design, construction and operation of plants, ships and offshore facilities. Intergraph SG&I provides geospatially-powered solutions to the defense and intelligence, public safety and security, government, transportation, photogrammetry, utilities, and communications industries. For more information, visit www.intergraph.com.