Redlands, California-Users of ESRI's RouteMAP IMS software can now access local weather from WeatherBug, the largest weather sensor and camera network in the world, headquartered in Germantown, Maryland. With a network of 8,000 tracking stations, WeatherBug provides up-to-date local weather throughout the United States. The ability to view weather will allow companies to respond to and plan for inclement conditions that may be dangerous or slow down business. This will allow organizations to manage staff and vehicles more effectively, creating a safer and more productive work environment.

"Along with other enhancements, like new cartographic elements and enhanced Web page templates, this version of RouteMAP IMS gives customers the flexibility and power they need for routing and mapping in their organizations with very little overhead," says Jay Hoffman, RouteMAP IMS product manager, ESRI.

RouteMAP IMS enables users to generate more business activity by allowing prospective customers visiting their Web sites to see maps and get driving directions to business locations. With new features, including the ability to toggle an overview map of a current location, new text placement options that allow street names to follow the street line, out-of-the-box PHP Web page templates, and current weather data streaming, RouteMAP IMS offers all the tools and data an organization needs to create a total Internet mapping and location services solution.

RouteMAP IMS continues to include the ability to publish customers' maps to the Web with symbols for unique locations, display and print driving directions and maps to locations, and search for business locations within a 1- to 3,000-mile radius or a customized search area. The unique ability to find what is nearby along a route and see the results in driving directions and on a map is also included. The software contains 24 million integrated D&B business listings for the United States as well as dynamic database connections to Oracle, dBASE, Microsoft SQL Server and Access, and other ODBC-compliant applications.

Demonstrations of RouteMAP IMS will be available at ESRI booth #1859 at the National Association of Realtors (NAR) trade show November 7–11, 2008, and at ESRI booth #D26 at Real Estate Connect, January 7–9, 2009.

For more information about RouteMAP IMS, please visit ESRI on the Web at www.esri.com/routemapims, contact your ESRI regional office, or call ESRI at 1-800-447-9778. Outside the United States, please contact your local ESRI distributor; see www.esri.com/distributors for a current distributor list.