ESRI was founded the Environmental Systems Research Institute in 1969 as a land-use consulting firm. ESRI products (particularly ArcGIS Desktop) have one third of the global market share and are used by nearly 80 percent of GIS users worldwide from all professions.
The company has 10 regional offices in the US and a network of 80 international distributors with about one million users in 200 countries. ESRI has 2 500 employees in the US, and is still privately held by the founders. In 2006, year revenues were about $660 million. In 2008, ESRI ranked 70th on the list of largest software companies in the world.