Complimentary GIS Software and Data Saves Journalists Time and Money with Accurate, Current Information

REDLANDS, Calif., May 17 — (PRNewswire) — ESRI and Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. (IRE), announce a program that provides IRE members located in the United States with a complimentary subscription to ESRI Business Analyst Online (BAO), an easy-to-use, Web-based demographic data exploration application. This combination of GIS software technology and extensive demographic data for the United States will make it easier for reporters to investigate demographic patterns for news articles.

"This new partnership brings IRE members a new tool they can use to add demographic data to their stories," states IRE executive director Mark Horvit. "ESRI and IRE have a long-standing partnership that has been of great benefit to our members, and this new arrangement with BAO adds another important element to that."

With BAO, IRE members can access information including demographic data, street basemaps, imagery, data from government sources, and Microsoft's Bing business location information. Data summaries can be prepared easily through 17 preformatted reports and maps, or users can interact with the data, creating their own thematic maps and uploading additional data. Reporters and editors can highlight data such as street addresses, event locations, and areas of interest to show analysis according to factors such as drive times. All data and analysis can be accessed with BAO using Web browsers on both PCs and Mac computers.

For specialized data needs, news outlets can obtain data and maps from the ESRI product marketing team, which has extensive experience working with news media. ESRI employs many data sources and proven methodologies to ensure delivery of the industry's most accurate current-year demographic data estimates and five-year forecasts. Updated demographic data variables are available at a wide variety of geographies, including national, state, county, census tract, and block group. Other proprietary databases developed by ESRI are available including Consumer Spending, Market Potential, Retail MarketPlace, and Tapestry Segmentation.

More information can be found at http://www.esri.com/ire. IRE members can access their complimentary BAO subscription at http://www.ire.org/membersonly/esri.

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 http://www.esri.com/news.

ESRI, the ESRI globe logo, GIS by ESRI, Business Analyst Online, BAO, Tapestry, www.esri.com, and @esri.com are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of ESRI in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective trademark owners.

SOURCE ESRI

Contact:

ESRI Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. IRE Karen Richardson of ESRI Phone: +1-909-793-2853, ext. 1-3491 Email Contact Web: http://www.esri.com