I know that I have seen this press release is in several places, but I just wanted to mention it with a few of my thoughts.  For those of you who may not have heard, ESRI will now provide Microsoft Virtual Earth data within ArcGIS.  This will be released in the ArcGIS 9.3.1 release.  Those who have a current maintenance agreement for ArcGIS desktop will get it with their update and those who have ArcGIS Server will get a 90 day trial.

I am really excited about this opportunity.  The main benefit of this for me is the aerial photography.  Our county aerials are taken every two years. By the time we get the data, it is 6-9 months old.  We recently got some new aerials and when I compared it to Virtual Earth it was already outdated.  This will give a big boost to the analysis that we do.  I can’t wait to get the data, I guess that is the next big question.  Hopefully, it won’t be too far behind schedule.

I really like what Jack said about the opportunity for data sharing.  This will be a great example for the GIS community to grow.

“Our agreement with Microsoft defines a pattern of sharing geospatial data on the Web that promises to grow the GIS community,” says ESRI President Jack Dangermond. “By bringing Virtual Earth into their GIS projects, people will have a greater opportunity to perform spatial analysis based on dynamic data.”

Read the Press Release:

http://www.esri.com/news/releases/09_1qtr/virtual-earth_microsoft.html