Satnews Daily
February 25th, 2012

GeoEye... Disaster Response With Satellite Tasking (Imagery)


[SatNews] GeoEye, Inc. (NASDAQ: GEOY) will jointly develop a new crisis response imagery service....

....with Esri, the leading global geographic information software provider. This service, expected to be released this spring, will augment Esri's current disaster response capability with GeoEye's ability to task its satellite to collect high-resolution satellite imagery after a crisis. Currently, Esri supports disaster and crisis response globally with best practices, technology and field response teams. GeoEye content plays a critical role in all aspects of disaster response. The new service will provide Esri and their user community access to timely and quality imagery during disasters.

This new bundled solution is critical as current world events escalate and first responders, government, and commercial risk organizations have the need to see, understand and respond to crisis events when lives and property are at risk. ArcGIS users will be able to leverage GeoEye's map-accurate imagery and Esri tools to gain clear and timely insight before, during and after a crisis, emergency or global event.

Chris Tully, GeoEye's senior vice president of sales, said, "We're extremely pleased that Esri chose GeoEye as their imagery partner for this important work. Geospatial technology plays a critical role in determining where resources should be deployed most effectively after a crisis. We feel confident that Esri users will see immediate benefits when they leverage timely GeoEye event imagery and Esri support through this service."

"Imagery plays a vital role during events," says Russ Johnson, Esri's director of Public Safety and Homeland Security. "It allows us to rapidly visualize impacts, analyze change and empower field teams conducting mobile operations. GeoEye and Esri share the same vision for supporting global incidents, and we are excited about what this means for users worldwide."

In July 2011, GeoEye and Esri announced their first joint product offering, GeoEye Image Pack, which provides an easy way for Esri customers with a programmatic Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) to procure high-resolution data from GeoEye's extensive imagery archive. GeoEye company information link.