Microsoft India on Monday (November 3) launched “Live Search Maps” offering its users access to detailed street maps for nine cities, local business listings across 29 cities and access to highway networks to 20,000 cities and towns. With it, MS has joined the likes of Google, Yahoo!, and MapMyIndia in offering locals mapping service.
The first version of the mapping service for India has been developed by the Hyderabad based Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC). The service which is currently available both on mobile phones and PCs will also be extended to as many as 30 cities in the near future.
Live Search Maps would allow users to explore geographical information including roads, localities, hotels, restaurants across nine cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmedabd and Jaipur.
In addition, the service will also make available local business listings of 29 major cities viz. Pune, Agra, Allahabad, Amritsar, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Cochin, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Kanpur, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Mangalore, Nagpur, Nasik, Patiala, Patna, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara and Vishakapatnam.
Briefing media at the launch ceremony, Rishi Srivastava, the head of the consumer online marketing operations of Microsoft India, said that Microsoft had made significant investments into research and development for live search over the last two years. It has acquired global resources and introduced various new features, which would be useful for users.
The company plans to expand the mapping service to other cities across the country with more value-added services such as landmark based driving directions, collections search, options for enterprise, customers and developer community along with satellite imagery.
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