Friday, June 26. 2009

New Pitney Bowes Training/Demo Center in UK

Pitney Bowes announced a £1 million investment in a state-of-the-art international showroom and training centre near Redhill, Surrey. It'll be used to train regional technicians and show of print and geospatial technologies to customers. It opens officially at the end of this month.

- Hellmail

Monday, June 22. 2009

@PBCares - Pitney Bowes Customer Service on Twitter/Online

Following the lead of the well discussed @comcastcares comes @pbcares where Pitney Bowes customers can share customer service issues. There's also a forum. The forum seems to be focused not on the Business Insights (MapInfo/Group 1) space but on the mailing side, at least thus far.

via @pbnews

Friday, June 19. 2009

Free Eval of MapInfo Professional 10

MapInfo (aka Pitney Bowes Business Insights) has always been good about making evaluations available and the company is doing the same thing for v10. You can get a 30 day eval here. (Do read the license and privacy policy to which you must agree before requesting it.)

Wednesday, June 3. 2009

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.

Thursday, May 28. 2009

MapInfo Pro 10.0 Gets a New User Interface

As the Insights conference and the launch of MapInfo Professional 10.0 nears, PB Business Insights dropped another tidbit about the new release.

"MapInfo Professional 10.0 will feature an enhanced user interface. The new interface, which includes redesigned icons and dockable toolbars, helps organizations more easily and efficiently create maps in fewer clicks. The end result: it’s easier and takes less time to create maps that can be shared throughout an organization."

I saw a screen capture here, though it's tough to make out all the detail. The blog post about it also notes a webinar on the new release on June 9.

Wednesday, May 27. 2009

Charity Support and Branding PBBI Style

I'm all for corporations supporting charities, so I was pleased to read that Pitney Bowes Business Insight, (which includes the company formerly known as MapInfo) was supporting a drive around the world in a 1978 Cooper Mini to raise funds for several charities. The company donated $10,000. Great.

Now, the odd part: MapInfo is in the car and there's a Google Maps website to track its travels (and donate). That suggests to me that a casual reader would think that PB Insights is in the tracking and car nav space, not the location intelligence space. That said, a quote from a PB notes the most important part is the address locating, a technology where MapInfo has played for some time. The sponsorship is also aimed at promoting MapInfo Professional 10. I know that promotions need not directly relate to a sponsors product or service, but this one is "close enough" perhaps, to confuse potential users regarding the new brand.

Per IT World Canada:

The 31-year old Mini is equipped with Pitney Bowes’ mapping and geographical analysis software MapInfo Professional, which is linked to a GPS system that Mortimer is using to replace paper maps.

Pitney Bowes is tracking Mortimer’s trip through his GPS-enabled cell phone and providing updates on the tour via a Website that launches today. Visitors to the site will be able to subscribe for notifications on Mortimer's location and status.

The most important part of the technology is the global addressing, according to Justin Barota, architect in Advanced Concepts and Technology at Pitney Bowes, who was on-site at the Toronto event. If you want to meet Duncan in downtown San Francisco on June 8 and he happens to be there, the system will notify you that he is in the vicinity and provide a route to the event, he said.