In what its president, Sean O’Sullivan, describes as bid to bring desktop mapping technology to the common man, three-year-old, Troy, New York-based MapInfo Corp has launched a new version of its digital mapping package for MS-DOS micros, priced at $750. Users of the package – named after the company – can gain standard latitude, longitude and address-type information about individual points on a range of screen-displayed maps, and can focus on anything from a 52-foot span of a city block, to a range of 5,000 miles within the US. O’Sullivan claims that, thanks to the confinement of these kind of facilities to the mainframe and minicomputer environment, there is simply no competition yet. IBM, which recently entered the mapping market, but is also one of MapInfo’s customers, tactfully described the product as complementary to its own mini and mainframe range of mapping software, but declined to say whether it was developing a comparable package. O’Sullivan pointed to sales and marketing, trend analysis, and optical fibre route planning as envisaged applications for the version. Current MapInfo customers include estate agents, cemetery planners, police departments, scientists, orange growers, and the US Army, which recently signed a $250,000 contract with the company for the supply of mapping software to its recruiting command.
