MapPoint Web Service Frequently Asked Questions

Customers are not required to do anything with this release. However, because this release includes new features such as polygon support and real-time traffic data source, developers will need to update their applications to use those new features.

Worldwide City-to-City Routing.
Build applications that will determine the location of places (such as cities or towns) worldwide and route between them. This capability includes routing across a waterway, a continent or country boundaries.

Polygons
The new polygon data source allows MapPoint Web Service customers to define and render a region on a map. Customers can then use this region to find relations to other polygons, point data sources, addresses, and specific geographic locations. Common uses of polygons include defining neighborhoods, delivery areas, cell phone coverage and territories. The MapPoint Web Service will offer a polygon creation tool and several command line tools for converting existing ESRI, MapInfo, Autodesk, Intergraph and GML files to the MapPoint Web Service polygon file format. Microsoft is also offering a COM Add-in for MapPoint 2006 North America and MapPoint 2004 Europe which allows you to draw your own polygons and save them to the MapPoint Web Service polygon XML file format.

Real-Time Traffic Incidents
MapPoint Web Service 4.0 provides customers with real-time traffic incidents (accidents, congestion, or construction) for over 70 major metropolitan areas in the United States. Data about the traffic incident include the severity, traffic flow diversion, the expected duration and the expected delay.

New Maps Styles for Consumers
MapPoint Web Service 4.0 supports new map styles to make working with maps even easier:

We constantly evaluate potential geographic enhancements and business opportunities. Although we cannot comment specifically on this now, we intend to improve our existing geographic data and add new countries and regions.

The Microsoft MapPoint Web Service is a programmable, XML-based Web service used by enterprises and independent software developers to integrate location-based services, such as maps, driving directions and proximity searches, into their applications and business processes.

The MapPoint Web Service is designed to enable a broad range of consumer and enterprise applications. All of the following examples use the same core technology, so customers can easily deploy all of these applications throughout an organization.

The MapPoint Web Service provides customers with powerful mapping capabilities, a cost-effective investment, easy and flexible programming, and a strong service level commitment, as well as being able to integrate easily with other Microsoft .NET-connected Web services.

Interested developers can download the MapPoint Web Service Software Developers Kit (SDK) and request an evaluation account.

Customers purchase the MapPoint Web Service as an annual subscription direct from Microsoft. There are two primary licensing models:

Pricing is dependent on the numbers of users and/or transactions you purchase. Get more information.

There is no single definition for them, but all definitions generally say the following three things about Web services:

Web services are discrete units of software that are designed to interact with other software, enabling multiple computers to work directly with one another. They are based on industry standard protocols (XML, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI) that enable them to interoperate across platforms and programming languages.

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Microsoft .NET is software for connecting information, people, systems, and devices through Web services. A “.NET-connected” application conforms to the core principles of being a Web service. Any application—Microsoft or third party—can be considered .NET connected.

Learn more about Microsoft.NET

The MapPoint Web Service SDK is integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET online Help. Once users have registered the MapPoint Web Service Web Services Description Language (WSDL) with their Visual Studio Solution, Visual Studio .NET automatically generates the methods and classes for the MapPoint Web Service. The MapPoint Web Service was built from the ground up to be a great .NET-connected Web service and is completely integrated with Visual Studio .NET. Microsoft thinks Visual Studio .NET is the best development environment to use with the MapPoint Web Service.

Yes, the MapPoint Web Service is a standard SOAP XML-based Web service exposed through WSDL. It can be programmatically accessed by any development environment that conforms to those W3C standard technologies.

No. Any solution that consumes the MapPoint Web Service needs an Internet connection, but that doesn’t mean the MapPoint Web Service is only for Web applications. There are great solutions where the MapPoint Web Service is part of a rich solution or automated process running on a server.

We generally update data on the MapPoint Web Service about every six months.

The MapPoint Alliance Program is designed to put businesses in touch with solution providers, independent software vendors, consultants, training providers, and developers that work with Microsoft MapPoint technologies. Potential partners can find more information.

One of the design goals of the MapPoint Web Service is to deliver exceptional performance and scalability. For operations planning purposes and for problem identification and resolution, Microsoft’s response times are closely monitored for compliance with its Service Level Commitment. The MapPoint Web Service serves a range of applications, including Microsoft MSN Maps & Directions and Microsoft Expedia Maps, which alone already generate millions of transactions per day with very high performance.

The end-user perception of the overall solution's great performance rests on a combination of the programmable, XML-based MapPoint Web Service and the user interface solution being built for high performance on the platform. Microsoft provides extensive sample code and best practices to ensure optimal end-to-end performance for customers’ end users.

Data uploads are done by the customer using a HTTPS extranet site. All SOAP API calls to the MapPoint Web Service must present customer-unique credentials. Customers can change their passwords at any time. The MapPoint Web Service data center runs the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system and is kept current with the latest operating system security patches. The data center also continuously monitors the Web service traffic for suspicious activity.

The current version of Microsoft.NET Passport is designed to authenticate end users. The MapPoint Web Service never needs to authenticate end users; it only needs to authenticate the customer application that programmatically uses the MapPoint Web Service. The customer application is responsible for authenticating end users (if needed) and may elect to use Passport. This is completely independent of the MapPoint Web Service, which never knows the customer application end users.

The MapPoint Web Service is device independent. We provide sample code and different map styles that are optimized for different devices, but there is always an application that sits on or between the device and the MapPoint Web Service.

Microsoft MapPoint Web Service is licensed on an annual subscription basis in two ways:

The MapPoint Web Service licensing model consists of the following elements:

No. The licensing model depends on whether the customer’s applications have unknown users, such as a store locator application, or known users, such as a call-center application.

Hosting and development services are available from our technology partners. We have carefully selected several technology partners that have proven success at providing these services to customers of the MapPoint Web Service.

MapPoint Web Service provides a list of technology partners on the MapPoint website.

We always welcome inquiries from potential MapPoint technology partners. Find out how you can become a MapPoint technology partner.

We offer HTTP and HTTPS access to the MapPoint Web Service APIs and a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection to the Customer Services site.

The following points outline the differences:

Yes, MapPoint Location Server providers exist for Sprint/Nextel in the US, Bell Mobility in Canada, TeliaSonera in Sweden and Mobispot (Teydo) in Europe. Several other operators are also in trials with us and with customers.