I thought I’d share some thoughts on Esri as a company and the ArcGIS platform, as someone who temporarily left the GIS industry, and then came back:
In my opinion, Esri seems to be a well-run company with great staff that make quality software. As much as we like to complain about things in ArcGIS that cause us grief, I find working with ArcGIS products to generally be a positive experience. For example, the docs and support are impressively good, the software in general does what we need it to do and isn’t overly buggy, Esri is always innovating new & improved tech, and of course, the communities are extremely helpful and are well-run. As my IT department said, “ArcGIS is the only platform we have that people actually like.”
In comparison, other big software companies like IBM are not as well run, in my opinion. To be blunt, the docs are terrible, the software is buggy, innovation is lacking, working with support is frustrating, and don’t get me started on licensing or their add-on products.
Those are some of the reasons I left the IBM industry and came back to GIS. And since I’ve been back, I’ve noticed that my IT department was right: GIS professionals really are an exception in the office; we enjoy what we do. And having good, flexible software is one of the main reasons.
Like I said, it might seem like we complain a lot. But that’s just because we hold Esri to a high standard. What I mean is: ArcGIS is already a high-quality platform. We can see that it’s really close to being exactly what we need, so we push for improvements to try to get the best possible solutions. Whereas, other platforms are so lacking that you don’t really know where to start.
So, I just want to say: Kudos to Esri staff. And keep up the good work!
