Claritas, MapInfo Make Push into Analytical Services -- The geodemographic data business will never be the same...

By: Joe Francica
(Jan 14, 2003

In making the announcement for Claritas, Bob Nascenzi, CEO, said, "Business is entering a new era where customer and market data must be combined, analyzed and distributed rapidly across real estate, marketing and merchandising functions." Mark Cattini of MapInfo said, "Building MapInfo’s analytical customer relationship business is a key component of our strategy for long-term growth. By acquiring Thompson Associates we will achieve critical mass in location-based analytical services..."

The companies are slugging it out for key competitive advantages; MapInfo through acquisition of Thompson and previously the analytical division of Compusearch; Claritas through differentiation of their existing services and expertise. MapInfo seems to be searching for a niche in which to build revenue as it sees its product sales waning. Thompson’s extensive client base presents an opportunity for both software and consulting services. The AnySite piece of Thompson will present a challenge for integrating products. MapInfo’s TargetPro and AnySite’s Analyzer perform similar functions. AnySite has been “data agnostic” up until now. It remains to be seen whether this will continue.

By forming a new group with a new name, Claritas wants to distance itself from its reputation as solely a demographic data provide. Over its history, Claritas has always offered services, but as it attempts to reach a broader marketplace, it is launching into a head to head battle with MapInfo in this space.

But, this is not the business it once was. The need to offer more than just re-packaged Census data, projections, estimates, and niche industry databases is an absolute necessity for these companies to move into a space that could be taken over by the large Customer Relationship Management (CRM) companies who are clearly interested in demographics as ancillary support for analytics. And lest I forget to mention the white rhino sitting in the corner, Microsoft is anxious to feast at the low-end GIS marketplace with tons of demographics and business data at a price point that doesn’t allow competitors much margin on desktop software. With recent additions of data from AGS and Simmons, the new version of MapPoint due out in a few months will be a product that Directions and our sister publication MP2Kmag.com will review in detail.

And where are the other “business GIS” players, Caliper, Tactician, or Scan/US. I rarely hear from any of these companies and you wonder how they survive. Stewart Berry from Caliper will however, but contributing to this publication so we hope to have some case studies in the future from that company.
-- Joe Francica, Editor

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