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Kudos to Esri staff

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12-03-2022 12:09 PM
Bud
by
Esteemed Contributor

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!

 

4 Replies
MichelleMathias
Esri Community Manager

@Bud  Thank you for your honest and thoughtful feedback! It is always humbling to hear when things are going well and not just the unhappy points, which is generally the case with a support community. I speak for the community team when I say it is gratifying when we can help you with an issue and we appreciate your regular feedback on the community. We are always striving to make it better for our user community.

I will be sure to share your sentiments internally, beyond our community team.

Thank you!

Michelle Mathias
Manager, Community Experience & Programs
JesseCloutier
Esri Community Manager

Ditto to what @MichelleMathias said! Messages like this genuinely mean a lot to our whole team, so thank you for having taken the time. We hope you know how glad we are that you're part of Esri Community. Your insights, questions, and suggestions have contributed to this place better meeting our goal of bringing GIS professionals and enthusiasts together in ways that serve everyone's needs. We look forward to keeping that good thing going! 

Jesse Cloutier
Community Manager, Engagement & Content
MichaelMontemayor
Esri Contributor

@Bud Thank you for sharing your perspective on your collective experiences with our technology, offerings, and staff. I want to extend an additional thank you for commenting on your experiences with Support. Our technical support staff take pride in their work and understand the opportunities they have when you or any of our users need assistance.

We are fortunate to have customers like you who show up each day to tackle big challenges and do good work.

Bud
by
Esteemed Contributor

It's been two years since I've returned to the GIS industry, and I'm still very happy with that decision.

It's also pretty cool to see such rapid ArcGIS innovation, including a few of my smaller ideas that were implemented in Pro 3.2! I remain optimistic about some bigger ideas too, like Virtual Attributes.

Happy holidays.