Microsoft announced that they have acquired MultiMap today, which is one of the United Kingdom’s top 100 technology companies and one of the leading online mapping services in the world.
The MultiMap move gives Microsoft a new location and mapping technology to complement existing offerings such as Virtual Earth and Windows Live Local, especially in the EU market.
“The addition of Multimap enhances Microsoft’s position as a leading provider of mapping and location platform services,” said Sharon Baylay, general manager of the Online Services Group at Microsoft. “This acquisition will play a significant role in the future growth of our search business and presents a huge opportunity to expand our platform business beyond the U.K. and globally. We are thrilled to welcome Multimap onboard.”
Multimap will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, as part of the Virtual Earth and Search teams in the Online Services Group. The acquisition is the latest in a series of moves as Microsoft seeks to expand its online services to deliver software, services, and premium content and applications to consumers and businesses.
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Liam on Dec 13, 2007 at 4:26 am
Looks like Microsoft is buying into the ad pie Multimap has. Multimap has lost me to Google Maps as it failed to keep up with Google in terms of ease of use and speed.
You forgot to mention that Multimap is one of the UK’s top ten websites. Multimap has been allowing webmasters to integrate maps for a long time, way before Google. There are lots of big UK sites which use Multimap such as the Halifax bank for it’s branch finder. Microsoft will be using Multimap to exploit the ads for that 40% target.
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