ARCHIBUS Integrates GIS with Facilities and Infrastructure Management Capabilities

ARCHIBUS, Inc., the #1 developer worldwide of real estate, infrastructure, and facilities management software, announces it has joined the ESRI Business Partner Program and will be using ESRI's geographic information system (GIS) software in its products.

The first product to grow out of this software development relationship is ARCHIBUS Geospatial Extensions for ESRI, which allows ARCHIBUS and ESRI users to access and integrate geospatial information with facilities data from each other's databases. This "Intuitive Business Transformation(TM) (IBT) Environment" utilizes real estate, infrastructure, facilities, and geographic information for better analytics and decision support to improve workflows and business practices.

ARCHIBUS software development efforts in the GIS space address an expanding public and private sector need for integrated software that can blend and analyze interior with exterior building data, including a vast range of geographic information. This ability gives users visualization and analytic capabilities for more cost-efficient real estate, infrastructure, and facilities management, improved site planning, and more insightful marketing and operations decision support, among other benefits.

Focus on Public and Private Sector

"We are extremely pleased to be an ESRI Business Partner from the Integrated Workplace Management Systems (IWMS) sector," said ARCHIBUS President and founder Bruce K. Forbes. "The relationship provides a domestic launching pad for ARCHIBUS and ESRI to pursue business development opportunities, initially within the federal government," Forbes points out, "and then expand to state and local government, higher education, and a wide range of commercial and institutional users. The products, which have been created as a result of our collaboration, are not only the first of their kind, but will also set the stage for future IBT Environments. Organizations of all sizes will be able to optimize and document their business transformation activities through their use of ARCHIBUS Geospatial Extensions for ESRI.

"The combination of geospatial, facilities and building data, along with demographic and other information, will vastly increase users' ability to more efficiently manage their operations at every level," adds ESRI CEO and founder Jack Dangermond. "The insights that users will derive from these information synergies will be critical in remaining responsive to market trends, compliant with environmental and other government mandates, and proactive when it comes to decisions regarding where buildings are placed and how they are managed in relation to internal needs and external considerations."

Single Interface, Vast Knowledge Access

ARCHIBUS Geospatial Extensions for ESRI uses a single interface and delivers ARCHIBUS data and graphics within a range of ESRI products, such as ArcIMS, ArcGIS Server, ArcGIS Desktop (including ArcScene), and ArcWeb Services. With these extension toolkits, users can perform ad hoc queries that simultaneously combine the spatial aspects of GIS with the logical relationships within ARCHIBUS data. This will allow users to unlock the power of both 2D and 3D geospatial visualization for improved analysis, reporting and decision making in areas such as: facilities master planning, property management, maintenance operations, environmental compliance, risk assessment, business continuity planning, among many other use cases.

These combined solutions can be published to the Web for drill-down, thematic highlight and search capability for authorized users within the larger organization. Both interior and exterior data can be accessed simultaneously to visualize an organization's assets and streamline enterprise workflow processes, enabling rapid business transformation.

The result is an integrated software solution that can quickly provide high-level decision makers with multi-layered insight, previously requiring hours of manual data collection and analysis that was beyond the capabilities of existing software tools. World-class best practices and benchmarks can be embedded throughout the Intuitive Business Transformation environment as a result of the new relationship between the world's leading developer of GIS and IWMS solutions, ESRI and ARCHIBUS, respectively.

About ARCHIBUS, Inc.

ARCHIBUS is the #1 global provider of real estate, infrastructure, and facilities management solutions and services with expenditures for ARCHIBUS-related products and services exceeding $1.7 Billion (USD). With ARCHIBUS, organizations of all sizes and their outsourcing partners can use a single, comprehensive, integrated solution to make informed strategic decisions that optimize return-on-investment, lower asset lifecycle costs, and increase enterprise-wide productivity and profitability.

More than 4,000,000 ARCHIBUS users collectively manage over 5,000,000 properties, with organizations reporting facilities-related cost savings as high as 34%. With over 1,600 ARCHIBUS Business Partners, local and regional support worldwide is available in over 130 countries and in over two dozen languages. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, ARCHIBUS, Inc. has pioneered real estate, infrastructure and facilities management software technologies since 1982. For more information, visit www.archibus.com.