Microsoft is not only in the process of releasing a new search engine, but also of launching a new consumer brand: Bing. Because it is envisioned as the Redmond company's next-generation search engine, a service that will kill Live Search, Bing will also affect existing components associated with Microsoft search, including the software giant's mapping and location platform. This means that both Live Search Maps and Virtual Earth have been rebranded to come under the Bing umbrella.

For Live Search Maps the deal is simple, and the rebranding obvious, especially since Bing will replace Live Search. “Live Search Maps was our consumer maps offering. This is the web site you go to for maps, aerial photos, directions, searching for points of interest and creating collections of your own personal data to store in the cloud. Live Search Maps is now called Bing Maps,” revealed Chris Pendleton, future Bing Maps technical evangelist, still Virtual Earth tech evangelist for the time being.

When it comes down to Virtual Earth, the new brand is not that consumer-friendly anymore. Essentially Microsoft has always regarded Virtual Earth as an enterprise mapping platform. And the rebranding is now designed to reflect that this is indeed an offering aimed at enterprise customers. With the advent of Bing, Microsoft Virtual Earth will become Bing Maps for Enterprise. The strategy will undoubtedly focus consumers on Bing Maps rather than Bing Maps for Enterprise.

“MapPoint Web Service will remain MapPoint Web Service. Photosynth will remain Photosynth. Well, this is a lot of work to go through each one, so I took the liberty of interviewing one of our Corporate Vice Presidents in Search, Erik Jorgensen, to discuss this hot topic,” Pendleton added.

Microsoft started rolling out Bing on May 28, 2009, and is preparing to give the public access on June 3rd.


Click video to view. Double click to view full screen