Though it already has a boost toward $1 billion by creating a $400 million company first with the acquisitions of MapInfo and Group 1 Software, Pitney Bowes Software acquired two more companies this week: Encom, an Australian natural resources software provider and Acxiom France, a geomarketing and data analytics company but also a long time distributor of MapInfo software in that country.

Mike Hickey, PB Software president said this month that he intends to get to $1 Billion in five years by both organic revenue growth and by acquisition.

I would not have expected the Encom acquisition as it does not fit the software solution model for Pitney Bowes in the area of marketing services. An exploration and infrastructure software company, Encom will offer accretive revenue and I suppose the move was geographic in nature since it fits the Australian market. But it's a strange acquistion from the standpoint of PB's competitive position. Acxiom France fits the PB model much better and offers them a localized solution for francophone countries.

Speaking at Korem's Geodiffusion conference, Pitney Bowes Software president, Mike Hickey, struck a resonant chord when he explained that "the explosion of Neogeography is driving awareness [and] collaborative data consolidation [but it] isn't GIS." Hickey explained that while neogeography is focused on "Where" there is no data creation and no spatial analysis, an essentially visually useful concept that has helped "cross the chasm from early adopters to an early majority."

My take is decidedly biased and I come down on Hickey's side entirely. He sees that while the neogeography approach to location technology has propelled non-technically focused proponents of evolutionary change, this path leads to the early majority group of businesses and other users who are, as Hickey states, "more pragmatic, adverse to risk and looking for proven applications."

Hickey's statements cogently define the growth and progression of location technology from merely the eye candy of mashups to the adoption of a broader fundamental IT architecture and strategy for bringing location intelligent solutions to the enterprise. The next phase of adoption will see more integration between BI and LI solutions and a demand from the vertical market segments to customize software that makes sense for their business processes.