Wayland, MA, January 28, 2008. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) (http://www.opengeospatial.org) announced that Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging has increased its level of membership in the OGC to become a Strategic Member. Strategic Membership is the highest level of membership in the OGC. Strategic Members provide significant resources to support OGC objectives in the form of funding for program initiatives and staff resources inserted into the OGC process.

Leica Geosystems’ strong commitment to OGC reflects the company's understanding of their diverse clients' needs for standards-based geospatial data management solutions. Standards based interoperability is a key requirement in solving complex problems that involve sharing spatial data and processing resources and managing the lifecycle of enterprise data. Leica Geosystems brings image processing, GIS, exploitation and sensor expertise to the larger industry community, collaborating with many partners to provide customers with comprehensive, multi-vendor, fully interoperable enterprise solutions.

As a strategic member, Leica Geosystems will now be contributing to the OGC process at a level that exceeds the sum of the prior contributions. Leica Geosystems shares the OGC Consortium’s goal: the realization of the full societal, economic and scientific benefits of integrating electronic location resources into commercial and institutional processes worldwide.

“By elevating its membership to the Strategic level, Leica Geosystems continues to demonstrate its strong leadership and commitment to open standards and the broad implementation of standards based geospatial solutions for use by the global community,” said Mark Reichardt, President, OGC. “Through the company’s increased participation in the Consortium, Leica Geosystems is positioned to make an important contribution to furthering the adoption of geospatial interoperability in key industry and government sectors.”

“Attaining the highest level of OGC membership available, Leica Geosystems is firmly committed to the Consortium and the interoperability and standards promoted,” said Bob Morris, President & CEO, Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging. “Through acquisitions and development, we are continuing to expand our portfolio with new standards-based geospatial technology, equipping us to contribute innovation, knowledge and leadership to the OGC.”

About The Open Geospatial Consortium
The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 350 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OpenGIS® Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.

About Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging
To be successful in our changing marketplace, you need reliable, enterprise-enabled geospatial information. Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging transforms your raw data to useable information, integrating a broad range of geospatial technology throughout your enterprise, via web-based, mobile and desktop clients. Delivering the most comprehensive solutions in image exploitation, processing, visualization and data management, Leica Geosystems provides robust image compression techniques and the most efficient delivery of imagery over the Internet or within an organization. With Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) interoperability, Leica Geosystems develops solutions with the most advanced service-oriented platform available.

Those who use Leica Geosystems products trust them for their precision, seamless integration, interoperability and superior customer support. Geospatial solutions from Leica Geosystems - when it has to be right.

A part of the Hexagon Group, Sweden, Leica Geosystems recently acquired ER Mapper and IONIC. For more information about Leica Geosystems or its products and services, please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 866 534 2286, or visit www.gi.leica-geosystems.com.