Autodesk vs ESRI

Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered in San Rafael, California, and features a gallery of its customers' work in its San Francisco building. The company has offices world wide, with U.S. locations in Northern California, Oregon, and in New England in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Esri is an international supplier of Geographic Information System software, web GIS and geodatabase management applications. The company is headquartered in Redlands, California. The company was founded as Environmental Systems Research Institute in 1969 as a land-use consulting firm. Esri products have 40.7% of the global market share. The company has 10 regional offices in the U.S. and a network of 80 international distributors, with about a million users in 200 countries. The firm has 3,000 employees in the U.S., and is still privately held by the founders. In 2006, revenues were about $660 million.