In 2006, the Redlands Institute began a partnership with the US Forestry service (USFS) on version 3 of program to become the initial line of support for the program and to help guide its future development. In 2007, the USFS awarded the Institute the stewardship on the development of the program while continuing to support and host the program for external users. In December 2007, the development for a version 4 of the product was discussed and the design and implementation phase began during February 2008. The goals of the new version was :

• Create a fast and robust system that has the functionality of EMDS, but adds the following
• Database oriented data storage
• Utilize recognized standards for creating a solid SOA application by leveraging the .NET framework as well as industry standard business, modeling and design patterns
• Ability to easily extend the functionality
• To enable this, the system is now a framework that allows us to plug together tools to form a cohesive, custom tool. In our case, we will utilize WF and WCF to create such a system, with the output being the parts being placed together form what we call EMDS.
• Full ArcGIS 9.2 and 9.3 compatibility, including leveraging the new geoprocessing framework within ArcGIS 9.x product line.
• Central project repository to ease sharing of projects among users
• Increased Performance by 40% for NetWeaver and Priority Analyst operations
• Ability to read and store geospatial information stored in any format ESRI supports

The standalone version of EMDS 4.0 was released in October 2008. The planning of version 4.1, which will include both the standalone and ArcMap integrated editions, will begin late 2009.