Wednesday, June 3. 2009

Keeping up with Microsoft SQL Server Spatial

Last year at our Location Intelligence Conference, many attendees were treated to one of the first in depth looks at Microsoft SQL Spatial. And since that time, with all of the ruckus over Bing and Bing Maps for the Enterprise, aka Virtual Earth (there is a ruckus over Bing, right?), it's easy to lose sight of the more "meaty" technology of SQL Server Spatial, or SSS for short. At today's PBBI Insights conference in Orlando, Ed Katibah, Microsoft's Spatial Program Manager, revealed a few new tidbits. I'll give you a few morsels to chew on below but I won't do justice to some of the details that Ed has provided on his blog, SpatialEd.

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OK...Now, Bing Maps are Part of Bing.com

Microsoft wants you to know...
Bing Maps are now part of Bing.com...It took them a few days since Bing was launched but now the maps are up.
And MSFT wants you to be cognizant of the bigger change...

As you are probably aware the brand change impacted the Virtual Earth platform and Live Search Maps, with Live Search Maps becoming Bing Maps and the Virtual Earth platform becoming Bing Maps for Enterprise. For more information, I encourage you to join the Bing community located at, http://www.bing.com/community. The new community site also includes a new Bing Maps blog. You can also follow Bing on Twitter, via @bing.

PBBI Insights '09: The Cloud, Recession = Eye of the Storm

Pitney Bowes Business Insights (aka MapInfo) president Mike Hickey launched the Insights 2009 user conference (follow on Twitter) event by welcoming attendees to the "eye of the storm," metaphorically referencing a dismal economy and the "great global recession." Hickey's message was aimed less at the financial disruption and more at the disruptive technologies such as cloud computing, software as a service (SaaS) and social networks. He is focusing PBBI to move as quickly as possible to the cloud. Hickey told me that PBBI held an employee session just prior to Insight’s just that generated tens of ideas on product development and deployment but with heavy emphasis on cloud computing.

Though PBBI is a big organization that’s part of an even bigger company, Hickey is trying to get his organization to act with the agility of a small company…a tall order when in the last 18 months PB effectively created nuclear fusion by smashing together Group 1 and MapInfo. The result has been challenging, to say the least, because the messaging from the company has to straddle location intelligence, geospatial technology, operational applications, and business intelligence, and then look across their available platforms, like MapInfo Pro, to create vertical solutions.

Essentially, Hickey wants to re-engineer PBBI to be a client-focused organization because as it exists today, with so many moving parts and products, he must look out to his client base for their needs and input. As such, the company launched a service called “Voice of the Customer” that employs a metrics-driven feedback system to give PBBI some insights into customer loyalty. The program is a closed loop process to follow up on any issues uncovered throughout the account so that there is more proactive communication with clients. Marilyn Otto, VP of Customer Experience is spearheading the program that has put order entry, fulfillment and tech support under this organization.

Google Local Business Center Updated

Google Local Business Center is a free tool for small businesses. It now sports a dashboard and integration with Google Maps so that small biz owners can see what terms drive traffic to their sights and from where. Among the goodies:

- "Zip code information shows where customers are coming from when they request directions to a business listing."
- information on when results come from a Google search vs. a Google Maps search

This looks like a great tool to help educate prospective location intelligence users!

- Google Blog post
via Internet News

EPA Holds Reverse Auction for Bing Maps for Enterprise (Virtual Earth) Contractor

FCW reports the announcement was made public on a Fed Biz Opps site.

The reverse auction to find a contractor to develop the app/provide the license for two years is already underway; bids close June 11.

Most Searched Brands on Where...

Per GigaOm:

"Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, Target, Papa Johns, McDonald’s, Bank of America and Taco Bell."

My question: how often do people search for a particular brand vs. a generic. That is, how often do people search "pizza" vs. "Papa Johns"? And, what does that say for the mom and pop hyperlocal vendors?