Pitney Bowes Soft Launches Business Insight

The Pitney Bowes MapInfo and Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software divisions will be going through a gradual transition to a new name. Pitney Bowes Business Insight (PBBI?) will be introduced throughout the fall. During this time, the MapInfo name is NOT disappearing and the company will still be focusing on location intelligent solutions. Mike Hickey, current president of both divisions will remain as president and will now directly report to the CEO of Pitney Bowes. Hickey said the name change underwent substantial vetting.

My take: At first, I thought it was a clever way to use "BI" as a double meaning but Hickey says that was mere coincidence. The name is OK. It’s not lightening in a bottle but is not bland either. It says what they do and that’s enough. In general, what you have to appreciate is that the combined entity has a lot of products and a substantial cache of very targeted solutions. The trick, as the company fully appreciates, is that they need to find a workflow to offer clients that clearly shows how the solutions can be used in tandem, or not. PBBI has several stand alone products that don’t need to be integrated. Naming is important and not trivial but perhaps of secondary concern to explaining that value of the solutions.