IS users increasingly expect content to come with their platform, rather than be an add-on. To help meet this expectation, in September 2013 Esri launched ArcGIS Marketplace (https://marketplace.arcgis.com/). It allows ArcGIS Online subscribers to search for, browse, and download for use within their organization apps and data from Esri partners—such as DigitalGlobe, BlackBridge, Airbus Defence and Space, and AccuWeather—as well as apps created by Esri and its distributors and partners, such as Latitude Geographics, Azteca Systems, LizardTech, GISi, and con terra. All apps and data are built specifically to work with ArcGIS Online and can easily be shared with ArcGIS Online groups and users.
While anyone can browse the listings in ArcGIS Marketplace, only ArcGIS Online subscribers can get free trials or make purchases. They can then access their organization’s maps via the apps that they downloaded from the Marketplace and add to their basemap gallery or to other apps any data services that they acquired from it.
In addition, the Marketplace enables vendors of apps and data services to generate leads, provide free trials, grant access to listings, and manage subscriptions. All of the services in the Marketplace are subscription- based, but each is slightly different. The Marketplace serves as a gateway to services that are published by the vendors and are supplements to the ones that already come with ArcGIS Online. Some of them are offered by the vendors for free, as loss leaders.