Pitney Bowes history

In 1924, Arthur Pitney retired from the company after a dispute with Bowes and started a company of his own, manufacturing postage-permit machines to compete with PB's meters.

PB's 1929 profit of $300,000 represented a 100 percent increase over that of the previous year.

The company created its first logo, which symbolized "the security of the metered mail system", in 1930.

By the end of 1933 there were 9,620 PB postage meters in service.

Not only was PB prospering, with over 27,000 meters in service in 1939, but the United States Postal Service had a $2 million budget surplus in fiscal 1939, largely due to the efficiency of the metered-mail system.

Many small firms sought a share of the market, as did some heavy hitters, including IBM and NCR. Nonetheless, PB consistently kept ahead of its competition. Its development of the omni-denomination meter in 1940 was a breakthrough in the industry.

In 1945, anticipating the broadening of its product base, Pitney-Bowes Postage Meter Company shortened its name to Pitney-Bowes Inc.

By the end of 1947, the number of PB postage meters in service had more than doubled to over 60,000 in less than ten years.

By 1957, however, due to the virtual disappearance of domestic competition, PB was faced with government antitrust action.

In 1960, when Walter H. Wheeler retired as president and chief operating officer, PB had 281,100 postage meters in service and metered mail accounted for 43 percent of United States postage.

In 1967, the company established a copier-product division whose first product was a tabletop office copier.

The company established leasing companies in the United States and in the United Kingdom in 1977 to support marketing efforts for its business products.

In 1979 PB made a major acquisition, adding the Dictaphone Corporation and its subsidiaries Data Documents and Grayarc to the company, for a $124 million price tag.

PB then entered the facsimile machine market in 1982, and soon became the leader in new placements of facsimile equipment. It first filled a gap in its copier line in 1981 by arranging a marketing agreement with the Ricoh Company of Japan to make its tabletop model available in the United States.

1982: PB enters fax machine market.

Keeping in line with company policy to compete mainly in markets in which it was guaranteed a prominent share, in 1987 about 80 percent of the company's sales were in industry segments that PB led.

The Data Documents subsidiary, however, deviated from this standard, and was sold in 1988.

The company also laid off 1,500 workers, underwent a costly retooling in 1989, and began to push more sophisticated mailing systems, like its Star system, which picked the most efficient carrier method for each package.

Entering the final decade of the century, PB saw its sales surpass the $3 billion mark for the first time in company history, topping off at $3.2 billion in fiscal 1990.

Following the course charted by that success, the company continued to penetrate the domestic market for business machines with the introduction of another line of copiers in 1991.

In fact, its work in that area was honored in 1993, when the company was featured in the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C., a recognition of numerous PB innovations throughout history.

The company also continued to expand worldwide, nailing down deals with three other countries in 1994.

In 1995, Pitney Bowes sold Dictaphone Corp., which produced communication and dictation recording systems, to an affiliate of the investment group Stonington Partners Inc. for $450 million.

PB promoted a new chief executive in May 1996, Michael Critelli.

By 1997 PB had developed software that converted mailing lists into addressed envelopes with postage printed on a personal computer.

In 1998 PB sold its subsidiary, Colonial Pacific Leasing Corp., to Capital Services, a division of General Electric.

PB had a record year in 1999, with revenue growing 8 percent, to $4.4 billion.

The company bought two smaller firms in 2001, paying $24 million for Alysis Technologies Inc. in March, then buying a unit of Danka Business Systems for $290 million the next month.

The company reported a profit of $498.1 million in 2003.

In 2004, Pitney Bowes acquired the Lanham, Maryland-based company Group 1 Software, which develops mailing technology, for $380 million, as well as International Mail Express for $29 million.

In February 2005, Pitney Bowes completed transactions in Brazil and India, expanding into both markets for the first time.

In 2006, the company had $5.7 billion in annual revenue, and more than 35,000 employees.

In 2007, Pitney Bowes acquired MapInfo Corporation and its location intelligence solutions.

In 2008, in conjunction with other companies, Pitney Bowes donated two of its 3,400 patents to the Eco-Patent Commons, which is operated by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, in an effort to reduce pollution.

In December 2009, Pitney Bowes opened its first customer innovation center in Shelton, Connecticut.

The British software development company Portrait Software was acquired by Pitney Bowes in 2010 for nearly $64.8 million in cash.

Marc Lautenbach has served as Pitney Bowes' president and CEO since December 2012.

The company sold its I.M. Pei & Partners-designed headquarters in Stamford for nearly $40 million in 2013, and relocated to a new, smaller headquarters in the city.

In 2014, the company announced plans for a rebrand.

In May 2015, Pitney Bowes acquired the online shopping services provider Borderfree for about $395 million.

Pitney Bowes announced a six-month startup accelerator program, "Scale-Up", in August 2016.

In February 2017, the company acquired the Naperville, Illinois-based mailing solutions company ProSORT for an undisclosed amount.

In mid 2018, Pitney Bowes' Document Messaging Technologies (DMT) division was acquired by Platinum Equity in exchange for $361 million, and the newly acquired business was re-branded as BlueCrest.