@mappingtoolsMicrosoft have discontinued a couple of geospatial products: Pocket Streets, MapPoint Location Server, and MapPoint Web Service.
Microsoft Pocket Streets
Pocket Streets was Microsoft’s mapping product for Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs and Smartphones, but the product line has been dropped. Pocket Streets could track your current location, show surrounding points of interest, and display customizable maps. Although the product line has been discontinued for a number of years, it is still possible
to buy Pocket Streets 2005 from a number of retailers.
Unlike the main competitors, Pocket Streets did not include any routing abilities. For routing capabilities you should look at running Streets & Trips on a laptop, instead.
MapPoint 2010 also introduced a number of new features targeted at mobile devices. These include the ability to import or export GPX files.
MapPoint Location Server
The Microsoft’s MapPoint Location Server allowed customers to connect real-time location information from mobile operators with map and route information supplied by the MapPoint Web Service. Microsoft marketed the Location Server as a tool to help companies optimize business processes through the efficient tracking and dispatching of mobile assets. Standard development tools are supported, allowing integration with existing business applications.
Location Server was launched in 2004, but is no longer available. However, the Technet documentation for Location Server continues to be available.
MapPoint Web Service
The Bing Maps Enterprise Web Service supersedes the now-deprecated MapPoint Web Service. The MapPoint Web Service will be fully withdrawn in November 2011. Therefore the Bing Maps Enterprise Web Service should be used for all new development, and remaining users of the MapPoint Web Service must migrate to the Bing Maps Enterprise Web Service in 2011.
The Microsoft MapPoint Web Service was a programmable web service hosted by Microsoft. It was accessed using SOAP requests. Capabilities included map creation, driving directions, and proximity searches. The Web Service supported a built-in database of points of interest and customer-supplied databases. Coverage included North America, South America, and Europe.
