PBBI Heads for the Cloud: 10 for 2010 #InsightsCon

Pitney Bowes Business Insight president Mike Hickey, who at last year’s Insights Conference pronounced that the move to cloud computing was real, made a firm commitment this year in terms of product strategy. He is challenging his development team to produce ten solutions that will be provided as a software as a service (SaaS) within the next 12 months. Understanding that businesses want to move away from licensed software in order to reduce their fixed expenses, Hickey believes that SaaS presents an extremely cost effective alternative and he wants to get there fast.

One new solution offered as a SaaS solution: SMART Marketer (SMART is an acronym for Simplified marketing, advertising, reporting and tracking). This solution is targeted at small to medium sized businesses that want to combine a number of direct marketing tasks to fulfill a limited but effective direct mail campaign. It combines some of the basic technologies from PBBI such as document management, geocoding, and demographic target marketing into a single workflow. In the end, the business owner (such as a small "mom and pop" retailer) has a customized postcard that is mailed to their clients and prospects.

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