Esri

Esri (/ˈɛzriː/, aka Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an international supplier of Geographic Information System (GIS) software, web GIS and geodatabase management applications. The company is headquartered in Redlands, California.

The company was founded as Environmental Systems Research Institute in 1969 as a land-use consulting firm. Esri products (particularly ArcGIS Desktop) have 40.7% of the global market share. In 2002, Esri had approximately a 30 percent share of the GIS software market worldwide, more than any other vendor.

The company has 10 regional offices in the U.S. and a network of 80 international distributors, with about a million users in 200 countries. The firm has 3,000 employees in the U.S., and is still privately held by the founders. In 2006, revenues were about $660 million. In a 2009 Investor's Business Daily article, Esri's annual revenues were indicated to be $1.2 billion, from 300,000 customers ($4000/customer/year).

The company hosts an annual International User's Conference, which was first held on the Redlands campus in 1981 with 16 attendees. The User's Conference has been held in San Diego at the San Diego Convention Center since 1997. An estimated 15,000 users from 131 countries attended in 2012.