For GIS, ESRI may be as good as it gets, but if you are looking for a program that will receive and manage Shapefiles for your analysis and presentation purposes…as well as precisely overlay with Geo (World) Referenced Sat Image Files and even exporting to shapefiles, I would recommend Vectorworks Landmark. You can take the GIS information you may receive and utilize them in your preliminary design processes, as well as progress them to your design development stages and beyond.
With regard to the related question of GIS on a Mac, Vectorworks Landmark functions equally well in both PC and Mac.