Alliant Energy Signs Agreement for ESRI GIS Software

April 8, 2009
Alliant Energy Corp. has signed a three-year enterprise license agreement (ELA) with ESRI that will provide unlimited deployments of current ESRI geographic information system (GIS) software

Alliant Energy Corp. has signed a three-year enterprise license agreement (ELA) with ESRI that will provide unlimited deployments of current ESRI geographic information system (GIS) software. Alliant is an investor-owned public utility company that provides regulated electric and natural gas service to approximately 1 million electric and 400,000 natural gas customers in the states of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The agreement will simplify GIS software procurement and administration, make budget management more efficient, and facilitate software distribution to staff throughout the utility.

"Alliant will be able to take full advantage of new GIS technology and now has the flexibility to select tools from ESRI's entire product line," said Bill Meehan, ESRI's director of utility solutions. "The ELA allows Alliant to reduce costs by retooling existing applications and streamlining legacy workflows."

With the benefit of unlimited software deployments provided by ESRI's ELA program, Alliant plans to take advantage of ArcGIS Server for broader access to desktop and mobile solutions. Alliant will be able to use ArcGIS Server to build Web mapping applications that improve situational awareness and integrate with other enterprise systems such as work management, customer information, and outage management. With ArcGIS Server, field crews will be able to more effectively use ArcGIS Mobile for inspections, design, routing, and locating sites.

"The deployment of ArcGIS Server is just one example of the many benefits Alliant will enjoy under the ELA program," said Meehan. "The ELA program simplifies procurement of essential GIS technology and allows the utility to focus on achieving its goals of faster, more reliable service of data to its customers and staff."

A longtime ESRI software user, Alliant Energy Company decided in 2002 to migrate its disparate legacy systems and data into a single, enterprise-wide GIS. The utility implemented the ArcGIS suite to enhance work order management, outage management, customer service, property accounting, business solutions, and field inquiry. Alliant's GIS has now expanded beyond its initial scope and is crucial to staff in engineering, planning, environmental affairs, dispatch, marketing, economic development, and renewable energy development.

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