Autodesk + Esri = Awesome!

One of the most exciting announcements made at AU was a strategic alliance between Esri and Autodesk. On November 15^th, Amy Bunszel welcomed Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost and Esri CEO Jack Dangermond to the stage to discuss the collaboration during the technology keynote address.

Redlands, CA based Esri is the maker of ArcGIS, a widely-used mapping and spatial analysis tool. The collaboration between Esriand Autodesk is a natural fit, as most AEC customers already use ArcGIS and its related suite of tools.

Anagnost stated that “Ideas have to move smoothly from one team to the next if we are going to address all the big challenges we have to address together.” Esri products model geography and environmental data. This information could be leveraged by Autodesk products to design smarter buildings and cities. Autodesk and Esri will be working together to improve the workflow between GIS (geographic information systems) and BIM (building information modeling).

At the time of this writing, details about product changes or new services have not been released. However, the promise of a more seamless workflow between geospatial data and Autodesk’s collection of AEC tools is welcome news to many users.

In the words of Andrew Anagnost, designers and engineers will truly be able to “make anything; anywhere.”

Esri CEO Jack Dangermond (left) and Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost (right)

For further reading about the collaboration between Esri and Autodesk, click here. To view the technology keynote from Autodesk University, click here (discussion between Andrew Anagnost and Jack Dangermond starts after 48m:30s). 

Note: This article was updated to reflect that Esri is not spelled in all caps. Also, I had Amy Bunszel's name spelled incorrectly. Oops!