The latest version includes expanded map coverage of Eastern Europe and North Africa, worldwide city-to-city routing and other advances.
LONDON - 7 Feb 2006 - Microsoft Corp today announced the launch of Microsoft® MapPoint® Web Service 4.1 with expanded map coverage, worldwide city-to-city routing and improved frequency of ZIP code updates. Building on the robust mapping capabilities of version 4.0, the latest version includes expanded map coverage of Central and Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and South America, with more than 150 cities in those regions now having street-level coverage, including locations of bodies of water and select points of interest such as airports, parking areas and train stations. With new data sources for Central and Eastern Europe provided by AND Automotive Navigation Data, MapPoint Web Service 4.1 will enable partners and customers to build applications that will determine the location of places worldwide and routes between them, including routing across waterways, continents or country boundaries, company officials said.


"The new capabilities within MapPoint Web Service 4.1 will be especially welcomed by customers and developers in Eastern Europe, who can use the product for routing, logistics, fleet management and similar business activities," said Stephen Lawler, general manager of the MapPoint and Virtual Earth Business Unit at Microsoft. "The ability to route between London and Moscow, for example, was not supported in earlier product versions. Moreover, this release shows our commitment to more frequent product releases in Europe and further geographic expansion, including a further update later in 2006."

MapPoint Web Service - A Powerful Location and Mapping Platform
MapPoint Web Service is a programmable Extensible Markup Language (XML) web service that integrates mapping capabilities into business or consumer applications. It supports Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and XML interfaces, allowing developers to easily build location-based services into their applications.
Version 4.0, launched in September 2005, expanded geographical coverage from 22 to 28 countries or regions in Europe, added support for four new languages, for a total of 13, and allowed customers to define driver delivery and other customised areas via polygon spatial queries. That version also gave customers access to information on real-time traffic incidents, and supported new map styles for consumers, including line-drive maps modelled after hand-drawn directions and night time maps that are easier to read in the dark. With version 4.0, Microsoft also offered businesses and developers free access to MSN Virtual Earth for commercial applications - an industry first.
Building on these capabilities, MapPoint Web Service 4.1 provides street-level coverage for major cities in the following countries and regions:
Central and Eastern Europe: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, and the Ukraine
North and South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico
North Africa: Algeria, Egypt, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Libya), Morocco and Tunisia
"The mapping and routing capabilities of MapPoint Web Service are key components in a vehicle-location-tracking solution that we have designed and implemented for an automotive services client - the first mobile MapPoint solution in the UK," said Tony Rose, director of integration services with Anglia Business Solutions Ltd, a Cambridge-based software and IT consultancy organisation and Microsoft Certified Gold Partner.
"MapPoint Web Service is used to track the location of PDA devices carried by the delivery drivers. The solution sends the longitude and latitude of each PDA device so that its location can be mapped in real-time. This enables our client to track the location of vehicles at any time during the delivery process, and also ensures that drivers always take the fastest route to collect or deliver a vehicle, thus leading to significant increases in efficiency."

Next Version Slated For Release Later in 2006
The expanded map coverage offered in MapPoint Web Service 4.1 will allow users to zoom to the same scales as in the existing MapPoint.World data source, although current street-level data sources (MapPoint.NA, MapPoint.EU and MapPoint.AP) will have better data coverage and fuller functionality in the areas they cover at this stage. The AND coverage is recommended for users that need detailed data in areas not covered by one of these three data sources. Furthermore, the new data source does not yet support the FindAddress functionality. That means users might be able to see individual named streets in Moscow, for example, but if they typed in an office address, MapPoint Web Service 4.1 would not yet find it for them on the map as it would for other Western European addresses.
An additional improvement in MapPoint Web Service 4.1 is more frequent updates of postal code data. The frequency of US ZIP code updates is being improved for batch geocoding this month. "We are constantly seeking to enhance the MapPoint Web Service offering for customers and the FindAddress function for Eastern Europe is due to be incorporated into future releases of MapPoint Web Service," said Lawler "Future releases will also include implementation of the postal code updates for the FindAddress functionality and for other countries in addition to the US."

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About Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa)
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Microsoft PR Contacts
Peter Williams, Microsoft International MapPoint Business Unit, Marketing Lead
Phone: +44 118 909 3377
E-mail: peter.williams@microsoft.com