[4] Given the dominance of Esri in the GIS industry, the term "geodatabase" is used by some as a generic trademark for any spatial database, regardless of platform or design.
[5] Another motivating factor was that even though several relational database vendors were introducing their own spatial extensions (with the notable exception of Esri's preferred Microsoft SQL Server), their structures and interfaces varied and Esri wanted its users to see all spatial data in the same apparent structure regardless of how it was stored internally.
[6]: 240 At the end of 1999, Esri introduced the Geodatabase model as the native format used in its new ArcGIS software (branded Version 8.0 to maintain continuity with Arc/INFO).
[13] It also released a product called the workgroup geodatabase that included the free Microsoft SQL Server Express for smaller multi-user applications, which has since been discontinued.
[14] Eventually, the middleware components for reading and writing the geodatabase spatial database structure were incorporated into ArcGIS desktop, eliminating the need for ArcSDE to be running on the server end.
Since John Snow famously identified the source of a cholera outbreak, spatial data has been central to epidemiology and public health.
[23] They have also been used in organized Early Detection Rapid Response (EDRR) efforts to treat invasive plant species to protect environmental resources.
[24] In 1995 The United States Census Bureau made the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing, or TIGER, Mapping Service available to the public, facilitating desktop and Web GIS by hosting US boundary data.
[25] This data availability, facilitated through the internet, silently revolutionized cartography by providing the world with authoritative boundary files, for free.