More Tidbits On MapInfo Acquisition

The Albany Business Review reports the acquisition will have no impact on the high school, Tech Valley High, to be housed in MapInfo’s headquarters.

Forbes has an interesting take on the acquisition (via Eric Frost at Map2K Magazine’s forum)

With the acquisition of MapInfo, Pitney Bowes puts itself in direct competition with Google, purveyor of the free Google Maps service, and Microsoft, which designs a mapping and geographic position program called MapPoint.

Ron Exler, writing at The GeoFactor (I guess he’s off Planet Geospatial; I didn’t see this there yesterday), notes that employees are fearful for their jobs. Ron also misread my statement that I’m an outsider “to location intelligence and business geographics” as my suggesting Pitney Bowes is. (Sorry for the confusion; I think my grammar is correct if not stellar.) He also asks about how MapInfo in Troy, NY will work with Group 1 based near Washington DC.

The Times Union (Albany) gets the local story including Micheal Marvin’s take. He helped students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute launch the company as well as support other tech ventures in the area. The acquisition, says Marvin, “is bittersweet. We need (large scale) companies headquartered in the Capital District like MapInfo.”

The detailed article notes:
(1) MapInfo will be known as Pitney Bowes MapInfo after the acquisition is final.
(2) There were dozens of potential suiters.
(3) Investment bank Jefferies Broadview of New York City was hired to run the bidding process.
(4) “The SEC filing says Pitney Bowes ‘has initially indicated the desire to retain substantially all’ of MapInfo’s employees.”

Michael Nelson, who works at GDC (GraphData Corporation, a UK company), which was acquired by MapInfo last month, pondered the acquistion on his blog.

I was skeptical of the company at first, thinking how embarrassed I’d be to answer, “Where do you work?” But after doing some dirt-digging, it seems they’re in the top half of the Fortune 500, are in the 100 best companies to work for, they have a good record in business ethics, human rights, and the environment, and seem to take a genuine interst in their employees’ welfare.