Google Earth competitor ESRI ArcGIS Explorer is coming in June, ESRI CEO Jack Dangermond has just promised. Thus reports Directions Magazine‘s Adena Schutzberg from the 2006 ESRI Business GeoInfo Summit held in Boston over the past few days:

Dangermond did make it a point to highlight one product in particular: ArcGIS Explorer. It will be released in June, he said, and looks “exactly like” Google Earth. Dangermond quickly rescinded that bold statement and said it had the same form factor as Google Earth. “Unlike Google Earth, it can task models and analysis.” Dangermond also spoke briefly about ArcLogistics Route, Business Analyst (desktop and server), BusinessMap and data products. ArcWeb Services (some 100 layers mostly for U.S.) cost $25 million to develop. He was clearly interested in showing off ESRI’s commitment to the Web model for GIS.