MapPoint is one of the least-known of Microsoft's line-up of office applications, yet it's arguably one of the most interesting, particularly for sales and marketing departments. At its heart is the concept of geographical data mapping. What this means is that the information contained in your sales and marketing databases can be visually represented so that you can, for example, see the distribution density of your contacts throughout the UK.

And not just the UK, since this 2002 version includes detailed mapping for much of the rest of the world, too. For example, street-level maps are included for the UK, Germany, France and (new to this version) Austria, Switzerland, the Benelux countries, Denmark, Spain and Italy. Detailed demographics information, such as population density, average ages, income levels and so on, is included for the UK, France and Germany. This information is provided in the box as part of a licensing deal with Claritas and other modules are available as plug-ins, for a price.

This product sits on same code-base as AutoRoute, but the two programs are very different. AutoRoute is mainly aimed at consumers, while MapPoint is an analysis tool for business users who need to take data from Excel spreadsheets or Access databases and visualise that data in a way that makes sense. By importing this data - as long as it includes postcode information - into the program, you can see exactly where your customers are.

Using this information, you can define territories for your sales staff, either manually by selecting postcode areas or by importing a spreadsheet containing the same information. You can also view customer densities and apply any number of icons (either the standard ones or your own) to each location.

Since the program has route-planning functionality built in, you can also use it to plan delivery schedules and other journeys, or select 'drive-time' zones for planning the location of new premises. Other features include a currency converter and a phrase book with spoken phrases in various languages.

And that's really all there is to it. The premise is simple enough and so, fortunately, is the program itself. You can import data quickly and easily, just as you would into Excel, for example, and MapPoint provides sufficient help without any annoying hand-holding. We were up and running within minutes and you're unlikely to need to refer to the electronic manual except for more complex data import operations. To access all of the program's functions, though, you'll need to keep the second CD in the drive, which is a bit of a pain.

MapPoint 2002 will be of limited use in a general office environment, but for companies with a large customer base it can help make sense of database information. Planning new premises and defining sales territories could therefore be simplified.