14 DAY TRIAL // The Bing ASP.NET Map Control CTP (formerly Virtual Earth ASP.NET Map Control CTP) is a victim of the Live Services update that also killed the Live Framework CTP as a part of the preparations Microsoft is making for Windows Live Wave 4. Chris Pendleton, the Virtual Earth technical evangelist for Microsoft, confirmed officially that Microsoft would be retiring the Community Technology Preview for the Bing/Virtual Earth ASP .NET Control.
“It’s toast,” Pendleton stated. “It was great for what it was (ASP .NET wrappers for the AJAX control); but, we really needed to build a control that used the services in a direct fashion and were supported from Microsoft. Now, just to be clear, there wasn’t a whole lot of magic here other than we wrapped what the AJAX control already did into an ASP .NET friendly library. So, everything that it did can still be done just using JavaScript.”
At the end of the past week Microsoft announced a refresh to the developer services for Windows Live. Essentially, Live Framework CTP will be killed off and integrated into Windows Live Wave 4. But the Bing/Virtual Earth ASP .NET Control CTP will die completely as far as Microsoft is concerned. However, plans are already in motion for the control to come back to life in the future as an open-source project.
“John O’Brien from Soul Solutions who wrote the original VE ASP .NET control for us, plans to take the code and post it to CodePlex. We’ll open source that bad boy and see what you community developers can add with it. Huge ups to John for owning that,” Pendleton explained. “If you want a supported .NET interface from Microsoft, you can use the Bing Maps Silverlight Control which is currently in CTP. This WILL come out of CTP and become a supported version, so do not fear it will share the ASP .NET Control’s fate.”
For the time being there is also a third-party solution available for developers that are currently using Bing/Virtual Earth ASP .NET Control CTP. Pendleton pointed devs to Chris Pietschmann from Simplovation and the Bing Maps ASP .NET control (Web.Maps.VE v2.0). A Web.Maps.VE trial is available for download at no charge.
“[The] control actually gets updated and is leveraging the latest technology from Version 6.2 of our Bing Maps AJAX Control, including accessing the Edge Caching Network. Hey, and he’ll even tell you the road map – something I can’t do without the right Microsoft lawyers okaying it,” Pendleton noted.