Indians can now plan multi-city road trips with landmarks along the way – delivered to you by Microsoft Live Search Maps

Tie up with Hyderabad Police for citizens to locate local police stations easily

Mumbai, February 09, 2009 – Microsoft India today delivered the next release of Live Search Maps which offers multi point routing ability to enable Indians to plan multi-city road trips in a single search query. With this expanded version of Live Search Maps, users can now also search for directions based on common points of interest and landmarks and also access detailed street maps for top 17 cities and highway road network covering 48,000 cities and towns. These key features have been developed by the Live Search & Incubations for Emerging Markets team at Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC) based in Hyderabad. The latest version of Live Search Maps is available today through the computer or mobile and can be accessed at http://maps.live.co.in/ and http://m.live.co.in.

“Our focus is on constantly providing innovative and unique services that meet evolving needs of users on the PC and Mobile, and the release of this version of Live Search Maps India within three months of the first launch in November 2008 is testament to this,” said Ravi Datanwala, Group Manager – Live Search, Consumer and Online, Microsoft India. “The new features have been incorporated basis a deep understanding of what Indians are looking for when searching for directions and maps, and we are sure our users will see value in them,” he added.

To enable increased innovation on the Live Search Maps platform, Microsoft has opened the APIs for Indian enterprise and developer communities to encourage development of custom mapping applications using Microsoft’s Virtual Earth. Announcing the first of these partnerships, Microsoft India and the Hyderabad Police Department launched a joint initiative called “Know Your Police Station” which offers citizens a very intuitive way to find services such as the nearest police station. Live Search Maps have been integrated on the Hyderabad Police website www.hyderabadpolice.gov.in to help the community locate nearest police stations easily and also get driving directions.

“The innovative features of the new release have been developed by my team at the Microsoft India Development Centre in Hyderabad. In addition to landmark based directions, Multi-point Routing, and increased coverage to 17 cities, we have enabled access to the Virtual Earth platform via APIs to the developer community, thereby encouraging developers and enterprises to build innovative solutions that leverage the power of the platform and our rich Indian data. One example of this is the citizen service we have developed in partnership with the Hyderabad police,” said Gurpreet S. Pall, General Manager – Live Search and MSN Technologies, Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC).

Speaking on the partnership with Microsoft, B Prasada

Rao, Commissioner, Hyderabad Police, said: “Continually providing citizens with services that are relevant and easy to use is a huge focus for Hyderabad Police and our partnership with Microsoft to create this unique Live Maps based application, is an important step in this direction. With the launch of the application, Know Your Police Station, citizens can now access information on Police Stations across Hyderabad in an intuitive and interactive manner. We look forward to a long term engagement with Microsoft to ensure that we are constantly providing citizen services that are essential and easy to use.”

The engagement with the Hyderabad Police is the first leg of the partnership with Microsoft. Over the coming months, the application will incorporate several more services, including plotting all important landmarks such as State and Central Government offices, e-seva centers, government hospitals and fire stations on Live Maps India. In the future, visitors to the Hyderabad police website will also have access to real time updates and images on traffic conditions in the city.

What’s new in this release of Live Search Maps for India?

· Maps for 8 new Indian cities (Nasik, Indore, Sholapur, Surat, Nagpur, Pimpri/Chinchwad, Chandigarh/Mohali/Panchkula, Panaji/Marmagao) taking the cities coverage to 17 and Inter-Town Road Network of India along with landmarks/places of general interest with roughly 48,000 cities/towns/major localities.
o Improved Driving Directions
o Landmark based Driving Directions e.g. “Pass Petrol Pump on the left in 5.5 km”, “Via Falaknuma, Shamshabad”, “Entering Karnataka”
o Multipoint Routing and Round trip e.g. plan your trip for Hyderabad-Bangalore-Mysore-Hyderabad route
· Collections Search – Empowers users easily search community generated content like places of interests, routes, photographs on the maps.
· New APIs for Developers – Empowers developer community create custom map applications powered by Virtual Earth.
o Interactive Software Development Kit (SDK)
o Virtual Earth Map Control
o Virtual Earth Web Services (VEWS)

Similar to the first release, all the above features and data are also available on mobile (http://m.live.co.in). In addition, new functionality is added for users-on-the-go to easily use their home, office and other locations for weather forecast and driving directions.

Live Search Maps India is powered by the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform, draws information through local vendor sources such as NAVTEQ, a leading global provider of digital map data for location-based solutions and vehicle navigation and uses Government of India approved data.

“We are happy to continue to work with Microsoft in its constant improvement of Live Search Maps for India. Together we continue to bring a fresh and increasingly relevant Live Search Maps to consumers in India supported by the highest quality data, delivering additional value to users. The data in this new generation Live Search Maps allows users to accurately locate places in India through landmarks, places of general interest and via multiple routes that are relevant to them. And NAVTEQ’s database for India has received all of the required approvals from Governmental authorities in India. We look forward to continuing to play a role in delivering a quality experience to Live Search Map users in India,” said Rich Shuman, Senior Vice President – Asia Pacific Sales, NAVTEQ.

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About Consumer & Online Business

Microsoft’s Consumer & Online business aims to create a seamless experience for consumers across PCs, phones, and the Web. The Consumer & Online business drives all sales, marketing, content & programming, business development, and operations across Windows Vista, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, MSN, Live Search, advertising sales and other services.

About Microsoft India Development Center

The Microsoft India Development Center (MSIDC) at Hyderabad plays an important role in contributing to innovation and building products – it is fully integrated with the key product families of Microsoft and is one of the largest MS software development centers outside Redmond. MSIDC commenced operations in 1998 with about 20 people under the leadership of Srini Koppolu, who is now the Corporate Vice President and Managing Director of MSIDC. Today it has more than 1500 employees with end to end engineering responsibility for several major Microsoft products, features or technologies. MSIDC has contributed to the filing of 220 patents for Microsoft in the last four years.

About Microsoft India

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software – any time, any place and on any device. Microsoft Corporation India Private Ltd is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation USA. It has had a presence in India since 1990 and currently has offices in 16 cities – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jamshedpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, and Pune.

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