Well, hello once again, it's Wednesday morning -- and time to summarize yesterday's happenings!

Tuesday at the ESRI User's Conference saw roughly 9600 of us get down to business and begin a fast paced day of jumping from one presentation to another.

I estimated that there were at least 250 presentations being held with each session being up to an hour and half in length. For this reason, the most sessions one could sit in on during the entire day was 6.

And, with so many choices, it was obvious that it was rather difficult for many of the attendees to narrow down their list of presentations to attend.

I found it rather amusing watching people early in the morning frantically jumping from one room to another while gazing back down at their pocket agenda. Many had "blank" looks on their faces, perhaps the result of wanting to check out 2 presentations occurring at the same time but located at opposite ends of the convention center!

As for me, I had my morning agenda set in stone and ventured out for the ArcIMS session. This in-depth session lasted the entire morning and was ably presented by the IMS development team.

Michael King, ArcIMS release manager, began the session by apologizing to all the Beta test sites. Apparently the team had gotten in a bit over their heads by establishing over 600 beta sites, which proved to be very difficult to support. When he asked all in attendance to raise their hands if they were a test site, approximately half of the room raised their hands.

The session continued with the team explaining the many features available in ArcIMS 3.0, which began shipping in late May.

After explaining the features, the development team discussed "what’s next", and what to expect even further down the road.

Until now, ESRI has supported several IMS products: ArcView, MapObjects, and RouteMap IMS. MapObjects was, of course, the first IMS product released by the company.

Release 3.0 will see ArcIMS become the cornerstone and framework for all IMS. In order to encourage current ArcView IMS and MapObjects IMS users to migrate to ArcIMS, ESRI is offering ArcIMS absolutely free, with a current license.

Also, the customary (and quite controversial) maintenance fee will now be optional (applause!) and pricing will be based on the user’s site configuration (# of servers).

Commonly used features provided in ArcIMS 3.0 include image server, data streaming, geocoding, extraction, and query functions.

A hotly promoted feature of ArcIMS 3 is the ability to integrate local and internet data sources. This feature enables clients to view, query and analyze data from a variety of sources, in a single client.

This is essentially what ESRI has accomplished with the recently announced Geography Network.

What’s To Expect With ArcIMS 3.0.1

The focus of this release will be enhanced security, support for IBM AIX platform, OGC converter, and enhanced middle ware. A Beta release is scheduled for later this summer and it's focus will be on International Beta support. Expect a final release later this fall (but, keep in mind 3.0 was originally scheduled to be released last year!)

The Future of ArcIMS

The future of ArcIMS will include ArcGIS support and the inclusion of metadata and a Geodatabase, all supported within the ArcIMS environment.

Plus, there is assurance that more extensions will also be supported, and the product will be 100% JAVA/Java Enterprise.

Users who are running Windows 2000 will be interested in knowing that ArcIMS has some existing problems in supporting the new Windows 2000 environment. And, I got the impression that this would not be a quick fix.

Next on My Conference "To Do" List

I’m looking forward to getting a detailed look at ArcPad and all the Wireless applications that ESRI business partners are developing. I will be letting you know what I find out in future reports.

Tuesday's Activities End

After shutting down shop at the GeoCommunity booth, I left the hall at 6:30 PM and spilled out into the Gas Lamp district of San Diego. I was accompanied by literally thousands of other hungry conference attendees. (a mob scene!)

I had a feast of Indian food (Chicken Tika Marsala… not too hot!) at the Star of India. If you haven't had the pleasure, the Star of India is a must visit restaurant while in San Diego. That is, of course, if you’re a fan of Indian food.

The dining was followed by a couple of hours of first-class "schmoozing" with staff from ESRI, GDT, and Mesa Solutions at Buffalo Joe’s.

Since I opted to stay out a bit later than normal, I must admit I forfeited getting up for Wednesday's ESRI 5k fun run!

My next stop… a morning meeting with Roger Tomlinson, father of GIS, and fellow Canadian!

Some more of my personal observations: (I may start calling these the "Letham Awards!")