The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and ESRI have broadened the scope of their current SmartBUY agreement to offer cost savings to all U.S. federal government agencies (including Department of Defense [DoD]) for volume purchases. This ensures optimal pricing and leverages federal purchasing power within a given U.S. federal government agency.

"GSA SmartBUY is pleased with the recent modification of the existing SmartBUY/ESRI agreement," says Tom Kireilis, GSA SmartBUY program director. "The modified agreement now allows all federal civilian agencies and the Department of Defense to purchase off the agreement, where previously only seven non-DoD agencies with ESRI enterprise agreements had access. SmartBUY had been receiving multiple inquiries from the federal community on the availability of ESRI software via SmartBUY, and now we are able to satisfy that demand through an agreement that provides significant discounts off of ESRI’s GSA Schedule."

SmartBUY is a federal government initiative that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) launched in June 2003 to save money and support effective enterprise software management by buying commercial software in bulk. ESRI was the first software vendor to sign a SmartBUY agreement with GSA in 2004.

ESRI continues to offer incentives through SmartBUY for U.S. federal government agencies with enterprise license agreements (ELAs), which allow for immediate and unlimited deployment of specified ESRI software products. At the request of the U.S. federal government, ESRI has supported the SmartBUY program for more than three and a half years.

"We’re very happy that all federal agencies can take advantage of volume discounts in our expanded SmartBUY agreement," says Jack Dangermond, ESRI founder and president. "Now, as agencies increasingly take a geographic approach to problem solving and data management, they can more easily access the geographic information system (GIS) tools they need."