ESRI announced that ESRI Italia, its Italian distributor, is supporting Bormio 2005, the world famous Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS) Alpine World Ski Championships, which will be staged in the Bormio region of Italy from January 28 through February 13, 2005. FIS is the official sanctioning body for international ski and snowboard events. This will be their 38th world championship alpine ski event, which is normally held biannually. ESRI Italia and its event partners, De Agostini and Lombardia Informatica, have developed for the local government of the Regione Lombardia a multichannel portal to provide information related to the event and the area in which it will be staged via location-based services (LBS). The portal enables users to access tourist information, such as restaurant locations, hotel availability, local events, and so on, in the Bormio region of Italy as well as all information relevant to the competition. The information is distributed via three methods: Web portal, PDA, and Java-enabled cellular phones. ESRI Italia and its partners are also providing a call center to access real-time updating of the results of the various competitions. The Web-based service will remain in operation after the completion of the competition. GIS software employed in the application includes ESRI's ArcIMS 9 with ArcMap Server and ArcView 9. ESRI Italia developed Web routing with NetEngine 1.2 and the Web geocoding module that will soon be released on ESRI's ArcWeb Services platform. Also used was Middlet Java Easymap by De Agostini. Comments Passini Giampiero, account manager for Web Services Development at ESRI Italia, "All the GIS functionality, including geocoding, routing, and map generation, is provided by ESRI Italia's ArcWeb Services using ArcIMS in a .NET framework and ArcWeb servers on a platform distributed between Rome and Milan. For the cellular phones we use the De Agostini Easymap Java platform." The Web site is located at www.bormiomobile.it and information is provided in both Italian and English.