The information tornado around the potential sell-off Nokia’s HERE Maps solutions may have many losing sight of the hard work the Bing Maps team is putting forward as well. During Microsoft’s Build Conference 2015, Bing Maps took center stage at several sessions to showcase the developments going on with its mapping product.
For developers fortunate enough to have attended Build, there was a lot of useful information regarding the future of Bing Maps extensibility. During a session titled, Leveraging Maps and Location Across Pone, Tablet, and PC in Your Windows Apps; developers were encouraged to take advantage of new mapping controls that are now built into Windows 10. Session leaders Mike Ammerlaan and Rohan Thakkar talked to the scalability of the new mapping control tool that can help developers create mapping solutions on the Universal app platform. Mapping solutions built with the tool will now be able to target phones, tablets and PC with a single map control. The new mapping SDK in Windows 10 will also support immersive 3D cities, offline road maps, and StreetSide imagery.
Mapping isn’t a consumer only endeavor for Microsoft. Bing Maps is also being opened up for business use as well. During the Visualizing Business Data on any Device with Bing Maps session, attendees were encouraged to combine the details of Microsoft Power BI and Windows 10’s new mapping tools. Session presenter Ricky Brunditt made a case for presenting natural visualizations on top of Bing Maps without the need to dedicate resources to coding or development. For businesses looking to get a bit more detail, Ricky went over how enterprise developers could use Apache Cordova tools in Visual Studios 2015 to bring their presentations to life.
Microsoft is working hard on turning most of its products and services into platforms rather than stand alone services. Based on the many Bing Maps sessions found at Build, Microsoft is already taking action to expand Bing Maps beyond the occasional PC search queries. As with most of the projects going on in Redmond these days, the Bing Maps team is also seeking user feedback on the new toolsets coming to the Bing Maps SKD in Windows 10.
