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Goodbye "MapInfo" and "Group 1"
posted by gywright
on Friday September 07, @06:00AM
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from the another-resume-keyword-nobody-will-know-in-5-years dept.
from the another-resume-keyword-nobody-will-know-in-5-years dept.
Joe Francica comments from Directions Mag on Pitney Bowes (PBI) decision to eliminate the brand names Mapinfo and Group 1 in favor of a new division called Pitney Bowes Software. Mr Francica laments, "It's made it nearly impossible to distinguish the unique selling proposition of the combined entity that, while as separate companies, positioned themselves in an emerging industry that has enormous upside potential. By sanitizing the new division name they've relinquished any possibility of brand significance."
Does brand significance in the relatively small geospatial world mean anything in the relatively large business intelligence world? I guess we know what Pitney Bowes thinks about that. Read their press release of the move here.
Related Stories
Industry: Pitney Bowes to Acquire MapInfo for for $408 million 2 comments
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All Points Blog offers two entries on the purchase of MapInfo by Pitney Bowes. From the first one: "There'd been speculation for some time that Oracle or Intergraph or Microsoft might acquire the company, but I confess I never hear a rumor about Pitney Bowes. that goes to show, perhaps that I think of MapInfo as a GIS company and in fact it's more a "location intelligence" company to use its favorite term, or a "business to business" company to use my term.
Pitney Bowes is based in Stamford, Ct. (I think we had a NEARC meeting there once) and is described variously as the "the largest maker of mail-handling machines" and a "mail and document management services" company. So, it's basically another B2B company in what it calls the "mailstream" business. PBI (per its website) helps "companies manage their flow of mail, documents and packages.""
MapInfo Professional 9 Released 2 comments
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Vector One informs us that MapInfo Professional 9 has been released. New features were discussed last month. I don't see anything changed, so here's the same summary: "MapInfo Professional version 9.0 is the latest release of the most powerful yet easy-to-use desktop location intelligence solution available. Direct access to new data including ESRI SDE and GeoDatabase and the latest CAD formats lets you use MapInfo Professional in conjunction with colleagues and other applications without the need to convert data. Rounding out this release are capabilities to perform time- and event-based analysis, features that improve your productivity by streamlining commonly performed tasks, and functionality to help you create better looking, easy to understand maps."
Reviews: MapInfo Professional Version 9.5 Review 1 comment
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Directions Magazine offers a review of MapInfo Professional 9.5. Last month, APB linked to another review by a non-geo professional. MapInfo Pro 9.5 was announced last June. Part of the DM conclusion: "The new product feedback function will allow Pitney Bowes MapInfo to collect and analyze user feedback from more of its users going forward. Users should find that the new features in MapInfo Professional v9.5 make the product easier to use and it displays better output. Users who need to edit spatial data will find the MapCAD tools very useful for their workflows and users who access spatial data in Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server database now have updated functionality to access these databases. Developers can now use the .Net integration to customize MapInfo Professional or to add GIS functionality to their applications. "
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'Tis a shame
(Score:2)( http://lordkingsquirrel.com/ )
Vector One thinks this is good for PB
(Score:2)( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @04:07PM )
Significant price changes announced
(Score:2)( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @04:07PM )
The name won't go away after all?
(Score:2)( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @04:07PM )