State, Regional, and Local Governments in the United States Are Eligible to Receive Grants Totaling More than $95,000

Redlands, California - ESRI, the leading developer of geographic information system (GIS) software and spatial solutions for local government, and Xplore Technologies, an innovative manufacturer of rugged mobile computing systems, announce the launch of the 2008 ESRI and Xplore Technologies Mobile Government Demonstration Project Grant Program.

The goal of this grant series is to foster innovative approaches to solving government problems through the combined use of GIS, GPS, wireless, and server technology.  Projects must demonstrate how GIS is a mission-critical technology in delivering government services as well as how mobile GIS solutions will result in increased efficiencies and/or effectiveness in daily efforts.

The current Mobile Government Demonstration Project Grant Program offers hardware, software, and training grants totaling $95,950. The ESRI and Xplore Technologies grants will be awarded to a total of 10 state, regional, or local governments within the United States.

Applications for the ESRI and Xplore Technologies Mobile Government Demonstration Project Grant Program will be accepted beginning July 14, 2008. The official deadline for all submissions is 5:00 p.m., Pacific time, October 17, 2008. Awards will be announced November 7, 2008. Completed grant projects must be documented and submitted to ESRI no later than May 1, 2009.

To learn more about the ESRI and Xplore Technologies Mobile Government Demonstration Project Grant Program and other grants sponsored by ESRI, visit the ESRI Grants Web site at www.esri.com/grants.

About ESRI
Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit www.esri.com.