The podcast is supported by additional information provided by Sean Richards, director of product management for Pitney Bowes Business Insight (PBBI) and Scott Robinson, director of global data products for PBBI. You can answers to the questions below while listening to a more in-depth podcast interview (The podcast runs for 22:01 minutes).

Joe Francica (JF): What's the biggest change you've seen in the Asia Pac region with regard to data availability?
PBBI: Over recent years we have really begun to notice a real change in this area. For some years now we have been taking advantage of some of the mature and varied datasets available to us in places like Australia and New Zealand by releasing integrated data and software solutions like our AnySite and Envinsa platforms. Our Asian data partners have witnessed the success of these platforms and worked very closely with us to get the data to the quality and maturity level that is needed to develop them. For instance, in the last year, we have seen our Indian data improve from 33 cities with detailed streets to 500 cities due for release in the coming months. In this new release we are also looking to have full addressing for the 6 major cities. We are witnessing all of our partners not only improving the quality but also the coverage and range of data products available to their country. Many of these countries have realized not only that this data can help with their own in country needs but has a high monetary value to the outside world.

JF: Can you explain in some detail on how you are finding the "openness" to publish data from countries that have been reluctant in the past to share geospatial content?
Most of the countries are actually quite “open” about publishing data so long as it stays “in-country,” often to protect their national security. This has been an issue in the region, especially in those countries that have a conflicting military relationships with their neighbours.

This is where our experience in working with in-country partners as well as our own in-country employees has really paid off for us. For instance, together with our employees in China and our Chinese data partner we have been able to take advantage of this local knowledge and work out how to get the best possible geospatial data out of the country, something we know many other data providers have struggled with.

PBBI: What new geographies do you have that are available or will be soon?
Since we last spoke we have released quite a number of new geographies. We now have China, Viet Nam and Hong Kong added to our other geographies of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, India, all of which are now in their fifth to sixth generation. We are also in the process of releasing StreetPro Japan, which will be available later in the year. We are also working on getting The Philippines, Taiwan and South Korea in our portfolio.

JF:Can you share some information about how you validate data from such a large region and explain how many partners are involved in the process?
PBBI: Nearly all of our Asian data originates in one way or another from in-country authorities and then our partners add value to it to ensure the data meets our standards for worldwide publication. All of our data products are built firstly to meet the in-country market needs, which is nearly always a great litmus test for quality. If the data is not good enough for sale in the country of origin it will unlikely be good enough for the external market. We also use our in-country employees to test the data to further gauge its quality. If any changes or improvements are required or passed on as feedback from our clients we work with our partners to address these in future releases.

JF: What are the biggest obstacles in obtaining data from the Asia Pac region?
PBBI: An obvious obstacle in dealing with many of the countries in the Asia-Pac region is the language barrier mainly because most countries have differing languages or dialects from each other. This is where having in-country employees helps us to communicate with potential partners or authorities. Another that can be particularly difficult to navigate are the legal/military restrictions of the respective country’s data. Western expectation can also pose a problem sometimes. Take India for example, where there are a large number of streets do not actually have a name attributed to them. In Japan, streets are completely separate and irrelevant to any form of addressing. These idiosyncrasies are often overlooked by worldwide users of the data and some clients can expect, for instance to be able to geocode their address databases with a simple digital street network.

JF: What's on the horizon? Do you see more countries opening up their data to vendors like PBBI and do they see the potential for expanded economic development through the use of geospatial technology?
PBBI: Over the past few years we have witnessed the profile of Geospatial data/software gaining some real momentum. Many global companies are looking to utilize this technology to help with their expansion plans or provide better services to their customers for example. These Asian countries have seen the power of their data assets, especially their economic value to the world and these global companies, not only in the value of the data itself, but also the foreign investment that it brings. This will only provide greater incentive to these countries to loosen up their restrictions.

JF: What new products do you foresee being available in Asia/Pac?
PBBI: We are continually working towards developing the full suite of Pitney Bowes Business Insight’s solutions where the country needs meet our offerings. To get there, we need to have Streets data, which we have been producing now for over 5 years in the region, as well as geocoding functionality. With these two functionalities we can begin to plot the path to our integrated solutions, so we will look towards quality geocoding as the next step for these regions.

Postscript: Pitney Bowes Business Insight (PBBI) has made a major investment over the recent past in acquiring geographic and demographic data from the Asia Pacific region. With the recent merging of the MapInfo and Group 1 business units into PBBI, there are even greater investments in quality assurance and accuracy being made by the company to support the demand of their multinational clients to leverage location technology.