Microsoft Maps Web Service Update

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February 10, 2004 (9:31 AM EST)

Microsoft on Tuesday updated its MapPoint Web Service, an XML-based service aimed at enterprises adding location-based information -- such as maps, driving directions, and points of interest -- to custom applications and portals.

Sporting new features, refreshed cartographic data -- including for the first time street-level data outside North America and Europe -- and more attention to mobile applications, MapPoint Web Service 3.5 is in part the result of Redmond's $96 million 2002 acquisition of Vicinity Corp, said Steve Lombardi, technical evangelist for the MapPoint Business Unit.

"We want to take MapPoint Web Service to the next step," he said, "and pitch it not just as a store locator [for use on portals] but as a location service for such things as asset tracking, call center applications, and field service applications."

MapPoint Web Services, formerly known as MapPoint .Net, targets developers who build applications that ping the service for information, then pass it along to users in the form of maps, routing information, driving directions, and other location-related presentations. Because it relies on standard Web service XML and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) technologies, it's development platform-independent. Any tool that allows for XML or SOAP data retrieval, ranging from Java and Pearl to Microsoft's own Visual Studio and Visual Basic, can be used to add location functionality.

Among the new features in version 3.5 -- which Microsoft is pushing as both an update for existing customers and a way to migrate Vicinity's users its own platform -- are a new Find API that allows applications to display specific points of interest along a route that's been plotted by the service.

"A company could integrate this with, say, a salesforce application," said Lombardi, "to display all the high-speed wireless access points along the salesperson's travel route."

The Find API will locate points of interest -- ranging from already-configured points such as restaurants to those custom-plotted by the developer, say customers -- in a 50-mile band (25 miles on either side of the route). MapPoint Web Service 3.5 has also doubled the maximum number of records retrieved from 250 to 500.

The service also sports new map picture formats -- PNG and WBMP -- that have been optimized for Smart Phone and Pocket PC handheld displays, said Lombardi, and can be called by developers simply by setting a single flag in the code. Microsoft's aggressively pushing this edition at mobile application developers with this feature, and others, including the ability to upload their own data to the service's hosted servers to allow their on-the-go workers to create driving routes and search for points of interest.

Microsoft will follow up on MapPoint Web Service in late March, said Lombardi, with another set of developer tools for pinpointing the real-time location of mobile phones, useful for fleet routing applications and consumer-based location services, he said. Lombardi declined to go into specifics about the upcoming phone finding toolset, however.

As in previous updates of MapPoint, Microsoft's refreshed the cartographic data, which is licensed from Geographic Data Technology, Inc. (GDT) and Navigation Technologies Corp. (NavTech). "Any mapping application is only as good as its cartographic data," said Lombardi, boasting that the service includes street-level data for 25 countries, and has beefed up the coverage percentage in another seven.

And for the first time, the service includes street-level data outside North America Europe. "Our street-level data for Brazil is the first time we've branched out," said Lombardi. "It's a trend you'll see exploited further this year."

Most of the remaining changes to the service fall under the Customer Service Site, an umbrella term Microsoft uses to describe the secure extranet portal users access to manage not only their account, but also manage their own custom data. The site's interface has been redesigned, and a new wizard walks users through the process of uploading and geocoding custom points-of-interest data. Batch uploads can also now be scheduled for automatic processing, Lombardi said.

But is Microsoft on the right track? One analyst hedged his bets.

"At heart, Microsoft is a products company, with a product culture," said Peter Pawlak, lead analyst with Directions on Microsoft. "For some reason, services never get much attention or traction. But MapPoint is certainly the most successful Web service that they've been able to implement."

He ascribed Microsoft's success with MapPoint to both the good fit -- "location-based data is one of the best examples of logical Web services," he said -- as well as the fact that Microsoft also sells a line of mapping products, such as MapPoint 2004, part of the Office System family.

"But they're never going to be a major player in the Web services business," Pawlak said.