Universal Mind Teams with ESRI and Adobe to bring rich user experience to the GeoWeb: Rich Internet applications a key future strategy for distributed GIS Westfield, Massachusetts (June 22, 2007) – Universal Mind Inc. today announced it will team with ESRI and Adobe to create a new generation of rich Internet applications (RIAs) that leverage ESRI’s enterprise GIS platform and Adobe® Flex™ software to make geographic analysis and access easy and ubiquitous. Increasingly, the web is becoming geographically enabled, and GIS is playing a much broader role in delivering business intelligence and analysis to the larger community of business and non-professional users. As a result, GIS has grown into an integral component of enterprise applications supporting critical and real-time decision-making across a broad spectrum of industries and markets. Universal Mind, ESRI and Adobe are collaborating on a new generation of web-enabled GIS applications that leverage the best user experiences and technology from Adobe to bring a rich interactive GIS experience to every Internet browser. The goal is to provide distributed collaboration and interconnection with dynamic, continuous GIS content that ensures a more meaningful understanding of geographic impacts and influences, together with fast, natural and intuitive interaction.

“This effort is part of ESRI’s strategic vision for bringing geographic analysis and data interpretation to any device, anywhere within the GeoWeb with unprecedented immediacy and ease of use” says Jack Dangermond, President ESRI. “These are three great companies that share a common view of the importance of sharing critical information using its geographic context and enabling geo-enhanced decision-making.”

“We are excited to see Universal Mind embrace Adobe Flex and ESRI’s GIS platform in the creation and delivery of its new Web-enabled GIS application,” said Michele Turner, vice president, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. “Through the combined solution, Universal Mind is making geographic analysis data more accessible and easy to use, allowing business professionals and government decision makers to quickly and efficiently utilize geographic information to help solve critical issues.”