At the mention of the ESRI brand, many people instantly associate it with the most wide palette of GIS software which has dominated the market since the eighties. However, ESRI has much longer tradition. It actually emerged in way back in 1969 as a privately held consulting firm specialized in land use analysis projects. Through consulting, ESRI developed extraordinary care for its users, unrivalled even today in well developed GIS markets. In 1981, as one of the activities oriented to the users, ESRI organized the user conference at the Montessori School in Redlands, CA near to the company’s headquarters. The conference gathered eighteen people who enthusiastically exchanged experiences derived from their time spent on their various projects. At the end of the first user conference participants were so jubilant that ESRI decided to organize further conferences on a yearly basis. Year after year the ESRI User Conference expanded and become the major event in the GIS world.   To request the GISDATA Review issue Fall 2005 / Winter 2006 in pdf format (2 MB) be sent to you by e-mail please click here.