ČEZ ICT Services, a.s. (ČEZ), of Prague, Czech Republic, and subsidiary of ČEZ Group, the largest electricity producer in central Europe, has renewed its enterprise license agreement (ELA) with ESRI. The agreement provides ČEZ with unlimited access to ESRI's ArcGIS software for deployment throughout the Czech Republic. This gives ČEZ staff broader access to desktop and mobile geographic information system (GIS) solutions for efficient management of network operations and customer response. The ELA includes an option for Romania and Bulgaria, where ČEZ also operates.

In making the announcement, ESRI president Jack Dangermond said, "We are very excited to have the opportunity to continue our close working relationship with ČEZ, which is an innovative user of geographic information systems. ČEZ's broad use of ESRI products reduces costs, improves decision making, and enables ČEZ's smart grid initiatives."
Kamil Čermák, chairman of the board and CEO of ČEZ, said "GIS is an integral component in our mission-critical IT infrastructure. Our enterprise license agreement facilitates the expanded use of ESRI technology to nearly all aspects of our company, both in the Czech Republic and through our subsidiaries throughout central and eastern Europe."

GIS enhances ČEZ's ability to manage its power services, improving asset management, outage response, work order scheduling, asset inventory, and more. The ELA enables ČEZ to grow its enterprise GIS technology for use by engineers, dispatchers, field-workers, maintenance planners, and customer service representatives. This means more efficient service, faster response time, and improved planning.

Electric and gas utilities around the world rely on ESRI's GIS technology for solutions to their data management, planning and analysis, field force mobilization, and situational awareness needs.

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About ČEZ Group
ČEZ Group is the largest electric utility provider in central Europe, serving approximately seven million customers in the Czech Republic, Romania, and Bulgaria. Today, ČEZ Group is among the 10 largest energy companies in Europe, in terms of both installed capacity and number of customers. It occupies a leading position on the electricity market in central Europe. Following the acquisition of three distribution companies in Bulgaria and one in Romania, two Polish power plants, and one Bulgarian power plant, ČEZ Group has become a multinational enterprise comprising over 90 Czech and foreign companies. Visit ČEZ at www.cez.cz.

About ESRI
Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.esri.com/news.