Python and ESRI (GIS)

[Tim Churches]

The following notice about Geographic Info systems posts appeared in my in-box:

Research Associate - GIS and Health (2 Posts) Department of Geography,
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
http://www.geog.canterbury.ac.nz/vacant.shtml
The Department of Geography, University of Canterbury is looking to
appoint two GIS Research Associates. The successful candidates with be
expected to contribute towards three separate projects, all
investigating aspects of GIS & Health.
Candidates should have at least an MSc in GIS or a related field, have
knowledge of spatial analysis methods, and have technical skills in
ESRI's ArcGIS software, preferably supported by Python or AML.

It seems that Python skills are now highly desirable for GIS people using ESRI
products - and ESRI has a major slice of the GIS software market. ESRI seems to be
positioning Python as a replacement for its own proprieatry scripting language
(Avenue)? Is that correct?

Tim C