September 18, 2008 -- Airdrie, Alberta – The City of Airdrie has selected ESRI Canada’s Small Government Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) to enable the expansion of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) throughout the municipality. The Small Government ELA is a program that provides affordable access to ESRI technology so that municipalities can more efficiently incorporate GIS into mission critical applications and workflows.

"The City of Airdrie is planning to expand their use of GIS and this will require a significant increase in user licenses," said Mark Nguyen, Calgary Office Account Manager, ESRI Canada. "We are pleased to offer the Small Government ELA that will enable the City to affordably reach their goals and take advantage of unlimited deployments of GIS software.”

As one of the fastest growing communities in Canada, the forward-thinking City of Airdrie is the first municipality in the Prairies to select the ELA program in order to cost effectively expand its use of GIS. A small team of the City’s technicians have been using GIS since 2001 to provide mapping and other data services via the internet, intranet and mobile mapping applications. In addition, the City leverages GIS to provide integrations and enhancements that result in more efficient business operations. One example of the City’s innovative use of GIS includes utilizing ArcIMS to enable the more efficient capture of census information. In 2008, the traditional pen and paper method of collecting census data was replaced with mobile data collection units for the first time in Canada, to reduce the administrative burden on the City Clerks department through the implementation of a streamlined, paperless process. In recognition of their groundbreaking use of technology in a Municipal Census, the City of Airdrie is a finalist for the prestigious Municipal Government GTEC award.

“The City of Airdrie has greatly benefited from the ability to view items spatially such as property and tax assessment information, pathways, tree locations, roads and residential neighborhoods,” explains Corey Halford, Team Leader of Data Services, City of Airdrie. “With the Small Government ELA, we are able to further expand our use of GIS both internally and externally which will in turn, enable us to upgrade our server, expand our mapping and data services functionality and considerably increase our number of users.”

The Small Government ELA program is open to all municipal governments in Canada with populations of 100,000 or less. Based on ESRI’s open and interoperable technology platform –ArcGIS, municipalities will benefit from access to upgrades, have the ability to install unlimited quantities of select ESRI products, receive ongoing maintenance and also have the option to purchase a professional services package.

For more information about the Small Government ELA, contact your ESRI Canada Regional Office.

About ESRI Canada
Established in 1984, ESRI Canada is a Canadian owned company specializing in geographic information systems (GIS) solutions. ESRI Canada distributes the world's leading GIS software including solutions from ESRI Inc., Miner and Miner, I.S.M. International Systemap Corp. and Azteca. In order to provide organizations with complete industry-specific solutions ESRI Canada has established an extensive business partner program that includes more than 130 Canadian organizations. ESRI Canada also provides professional services including consulting, training, technical support, and enterprise GIS implementation. ESRI Canada is a leader in providing world-class enterprise GIS solutions for many industries including public works, land management, utilities, defence, public safety, business demographics, education, natural resources and transportation. ESRI Canada has fifteen regional offices across the country, with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. For more information, please visit http://www.esricanada.com/ or call 1-800-447-9778.

Media Contacts:
Amanda Graff
Marketing Communications Specialist
ESRI Canada
12 Concorde Place, Suite 900
Toronto ON M3C 3R8
T: 416-441-6035 ext 6308
E: Email Contact
W: www.esricanada.com

Corey Halford
City of Airdrie
Information Technology
Data Services Team Leader
400 Main Street SE
Airdrie, Alberta, T4B 3C3
T: 403-948-8800 x 706
E: Email Contact
W: www.airdrie.ca