AirZip, a leader in high-performance image delivery solutions, and GIMS, sole distributors of ESRI GIS software in southern Africa has announced a business technology alliance.

AirZip will integrate its middleware product, AirZip Image Accelerator, into ESRI's ArcIMS for the rapid delivery of geographic information and mapping services over the Internet.

Powerful image delivery

AirZip Accelerator is an advanced Web server filter function that optimises image files, speeding the delivery of Web pages from Web servers to Web clients over dial-up or wireless connections, and improving performance by up to 800%. AirZip Accelerator intercepts incoming http image requests from Web clients, retrieves the requested images, and returns an optimised image to the Web client. Accelerator works with or without AirZip software installed on the client.

Benefits:

* Fast acceleration of image-intensive Web content.

* Uses existing server and network infrastructure; no additional investment needed.

* Works with or without AirZip client software.

* Based on patent-pending compression intelligence.

* Complements other bandwidth optimisation tools, such as caching.

In addition, through this agreement, users of ESRI's ArcIMS software will be able to acquire AirZip's Image Accelerator software as an add-on to ArcIMS. With AirZip Image Accelerator installed, ArcIMS users can expect to experience image delivery performance improvements by as much as 400%.

With recent accelerated growth in Web-based mapping services for mobile users, ESRI is focusing on improving performance in dial-up or wireless network environments. As part of this strategy, ESRI is integrating its Web-based GIS technology with AirZip's image acceleration solutions, which compress map images for faster delivery over the Internet to mobile clients, including future versions of ArcPad. ESRI's ArcPad software is a mapping and GIS application for mobile systems.

"AirZip's image compression technology is well positioned to enhance the performance of mapping technology, especially as it increasingly relies on mobile connections," said Lee Bauman, president and CEO, AirZip. "Since the growth of GIS and mapping applications on mobile devices presently is dependent upon its ability to operate well on wireless networks, AirZip is pleased to be enabling the future of this type of technology with an industry leader like ESRI."

For more information contact GIMS, 011 695 0400.