I rate ESRI ArcGIS a ten out of ten.

My advice to any company, small, medium, or large, is to find your business requirements before going to ESRI. Then, when approaching ESRI, tell them what you do, what you need to do, and what you will provide. Also, off the record, you need to put your ego in the box and not approach ESRI like you're super rich. "We'll have all the toolboxes, your support, and everything." It's a complete waste of money. It's come up in a meeting, like, "We're never gonna use a toolbox. It's £20,000." No company needs all of the toolboxes. But if you don't know what you want, you could spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on something you'll never use.

My advice to other users seeking this type of solution is that the product is very good and quite user-friendly. It could be improved in this sense of user-friendliness for a business user, but it is currently very good for the needs of more technical users and it is improving. It is a complete solution for those who want to examine the geographic implications of his or her queries. If someone needs to see data from the perspective of location, then it is a complete solution. The product offers everything that someone would need in a GIS solution and it can answer any question in terms of geographic dimensions.

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product as an eight. If you consider all the aspects, it is a very good product that has areas where it can improve. I think eight is fair in my opinion, as it suggests this is a good product and leaves room for the improvements they should consider making.