ESRI recognizes the value of open standards and IT interoperability; this announcement is in line with ESRI's continued commitment to ensuring that its products are open and interoperable. ArcGIS 9.2 is currently in beta and expected to become commercially available later this year.

"We have engineered our geographic information system (GIS) software so it supports many open standards," says Jack Dangermond, president, ESRI. "This maximizes our users' return on their investment in building geographic information systems. We are researching new ways to expand geographic knowledge to meet the needs of individuals and organizations in virtually any industry. Support of the SVG data format on top of the ArcGIS 9.2 platform is just another step in this effort. The power of open software and data is the ability to quickly and easily exchange, share, and distribute information to anyone and in any format."

SVG is a text-based graphics language that describes images with vector shapes, text, and embedded raster graphics. SVG files are compact and provide high-quality graphics on the Web, in print, and on computers and handheld devices. In addition, SVG supports scripting and animation and is used for interactive, data-driven, personalized graphics.

ESRI has built open and interoperable commercial off-the-shelf software for more than 25 years. The company has spearheaded many standards initiatives and advocates open access to geographic data and software functionality using common industry standards.

The ArcGIS 9 framework is the result of a major initiative to rearchitect ESRI's GIS product line to adhere to emerging IT and GIS standards. Specifically, ESRI software utilizes open application programming interfaces and supports data exchange formats and Web services standards for GIS and IT interoperability for both wired and wireless systems.

These key interoperability and Web computing concepts are in use today by tens of thousands of organizations that rely on GIS and IT interoperability.