What Our Clients Have to Say

"Ten years ago, we did redistricting with software and hardware that was bulky, difficult to use, and extraordinarily expensive. Today, Maptitude software provides us far more flexibility, ease of use, and capability at a fraction of the cost. Following redistricting, we will be able to continue to use Maptitude for GIS/data applications ranging from school bus transportation to land use development issues."

"Maptitude for Redistricting has immense capability -- it's done everything we've asked and more. Plus, our web site, which uses Maptitude for the Web, will provide an easy way for the public to access the redistricting process. The staff at Caliper has been responsive and helpful when we've had questions."  

"We have used Maptitude for Redistricting in the West Virginia Legislative Redistricting Office since the 2000 Census. I have also helped West Virginia counties use Maptitude for their realignment of magisterial districts and precincts. I have nothing but great comments, opinions, and experiences with this product. First and foremost it is VERY user-friendly. An individual with NO GIS experience can be trained to use it in a two-day session. Caliper provides comprehensive manuals and detailed training materials, and the technical support is outstanding. There are so many additional functions for creating professional presentations. I highly recommend Maptitude."  

"So far I have found the product support from Caliper to be of high quality. Howard's staff are helpful when you have questions. In general, I am pleased with the output that Maptitude can produce, and I think it will provide us with a superior set of maps and reports for redistricting. Finally Maptitude was recommended to me by a panel of GIS staff who worked for our Universities Research Center. These staff persons had been my technical support staff for redistricting in the 2000's, and had served in this capacity for my predecessor in the 1990's. Their belief was that the Caliper Maptitude product was superior to all others and recommended that I purchase it for the 2010 round of redistricting."

"I find Maptitude reasonably intuitive to use. Some functions and fancy maps require a little more knowledge but it is all learnable. The actual plan making is very simple to use and the data may be presented in different formats. One advantage this cycle may be that Caliper had the contract to do the underlying programming for the Census Bureau so I would expect everything to work seamlessly.

I have also found Caliper willing to make changes suggested by users. To me, this is a primary advantage. They constantly improve their product. I can't give you a point to point comparison because I am not familiar with the competing software. I can tell you that the political operatives used the other software last time and when they saw us use Maptitude, they thought it would have been better."

The redistricting tools in Maptitude are significantly more advanced than Autobound, and Maptitude is much faster at key steps. In one state, we were sharing plans across a team of three GIS technicians and among about 3 public groups who had their own GIS capability. Our team and the two outside groups could create an equivalency file, put it on a disk to share, and get it open and fully working on another Maptitude computer in under 10 minutes. We would often provide and receive plans in the fifteen minutes before a Redistricting Commission meeting began, and then all of us could view and discuss the plans live on any computer for the hearing. The one poor guy using Autobound took between one and four HOURS to import an equivalency file, depending on the number of districts in the plan, so he typically had to look on with someone's Maptitude software during the meeting. "  

"Our redistricting office purchased Maptitude for Redistricting in 2000, and it was an absolute wonderful buy! The software is easy to use, and you do not have to be a super computer wizard to use it efficiently. We have a small staff of about 5 during non-redistricting years, but ramp up in preparation for the coming Census, so it was important that we have a product that could be learned easily in a short period of time by temporary staff.

Caliper and their staff have been very responsive. Howard Simkowitz and Tracy Horgan have just been a dream to work with. The usual response time when we have had questions or problems has been within 24 hours.

There was plenty of research and time taken when the product was chosen. I am not saying that there were no problems, because there were some kinks in the early product, but those were addressed quickly in updated versions. I think that in comparison to other software that is out there, Maptitude really speaks to the needs of the Redistricting community. When they were in the development stages, our office worked with them on what was needed and what the expectation would be for a powerful software solution – in my opinion they delivered."

"We used Maptitude for Redistricting in 2001 and found it fit all our needs and then some. The product is easy to learn and user friendly. All the users had very few problems and could do everything that was required by the process. I highly recommend Maptitude. You do not have to be a GIS guru to get the job done. The software is very easy to understand. You can have a lot of preset things so they just use templates and standard formats that you develop and deploy.

If you want you can develop other uses for the software after you are done with redistricting. It is not just limited to redistricting. We have kept 5 licenses and we will probably continue to use the product for 2011 redistricting. I can't see why we would not use it. The tech support was outstanding. Any and all questions and or problems we had were resolved as quickly as possible and never delayed our process here. If we asked for something Caliper was very accommodating and responsive. Could not have been better."