Well, despite the upcoming availability of MapPoint 2009 and Streets & Trips 2009, users shouldn't hurry and dispense of Microsoft's Virtual Earth. Chris Pendleton, Virtual Earth Technical Evangelist Microsoft, revealed that in the coming months, updates to MapPoint and Streets & Trips 2009 would be made available for purchase. The new releases sport a variety of improvements, from updated content to an overhauled graphical user interface inspired by the Ribbon/Fluent design.

"Contrary to the release of MapPoint 2006, there are quite a few more features and a whole new interface. MapPoint 2009 will be available September 1, 2008. Streets & Trips will be available in early October at your favorite retailer. For those who don't know, Streets & Trips has a subset of MapPoint functionality, but if you just want offline trip planning software S&T is the way to go. And, for the Aussies, no, there is still no Australian version - just North America and Europe," Pendleton stated.

MapPoint 2009 (Desktop Business Intelligence Mapping and Analysis Tool) comes to deliver enhancements introduced since MapPoint 2006 while Streets & Trips 2009 (Desktop Consumer Trip Planning) is an update for the product's 2008 version. The UI of the new offerings has been redesigned including panes, icons and the toolbar. Microsoft added compatibility with Office 2007 Word and Excel standards and is also delivering additional information on no less than 1.5 million locations, a new GPS device for North America, 2.5D navigation improvements and closer integration with Live Search.

"MapPoint 2009 has a lot of upside with the software part of Microsoft's software plus services strategy, but it remains upside. Can someone build me a Virtual Earth com add in please? If not, I'll do it myself. I mean really, how hard would it be?" Pendleton concluded.