Azure Maps: Reimagining location providers with cloud and AI innovation

I’m thrilled to share information concerning the evolution of our enterprise mapping software program improvement equipment (SDK) and API choices. Right this moment, we’re saying the unification of our enterprise maps choices underneath Microsoft Azure Maps.¹ We’re combining the applied sciences and knowledge in Bing Maps for Enterprise with Azure Maps and retiring Bing Maps for Enterprise. This marks a major milestone as we remodel our enterprise maps choices to concentrate on making a platform that empowers our prospects to innovate and produce their concepts to life utilizing cutting-edge improvements in AI and cloud—all on a trusted platform.  

This unification permits our prospects to speed up innovation by leveraging different Microsoft Azure cloud providers whereas retaining many acquainted options from Bing Maps for Enterprise inside Azure Maps. Furthermore, Azure Maps introduces a number of options not present in Bing Maps for Enterprise, together with superior service authentication strategies, knowledge residency compliance, geolocation, climate data, and customized indoor maps. Unifying our enterprise maps choices underneath Azure Maps will vastly simplify our enterprise mapping choices making it simpler for purchasers to purchase and use our providers in a means that’s according to different providers at Microsoft.

Microsoft Azure Maps

Remodel your corporation operations with location knowledge

The idea of “the place” has change into integral to the decision-making and the way organizations navigate via the advanced enterprise atmosphere. Whereas the demand for geospatial data continues to develop, the context of “when” and “how” we make the most of this data is evolving. At Microsoft, we’ve got noticed how applied sciences in cloud and AI are reshaping how our prospects have interaction with the providers we provide. 

Making the transition to Azure Maps

Bing Maps for Enterprise prospects can have ample time underneath their current and renewed contracts to transition to Azure Maps. Bing Maps for Enterprise shall be retired on June 30, 2028, current Bing Maps for Enterprise prospects can proceed to license Bing Maps for Enterprise APIs and providers till then. We are going to nevertheless not be accepting new Bing Maps for Enterprise prospects from June 30, 2024. Clients with an enterprise license have till June 30, 2028, to transition to Azure Maps, whereas prospects on the free and primary license for Bing Maps for Enterprise have till June 30, 2025. We’re dedicated to facilitating this transition and sit up for having you be part of us on this journey.  

Simplifying and enhancing via Microsoft merchandise

Presently, tens of millions of builders and companies have entry to geospatial data via a spread of Microsoft merchandise—Excel, Energy BI in Microsoft Material, and Dynamics 365. Clients use our geospatial providers to handle wildfires, reply to public emergencies, ship merchandise to customers doorsteps, and a lot extra.  

IT managers and builders are more and more looking for instruments that assist them adapt to the rising calls for for extra knowledge and better agility within the business-critical options they construct. These calls for prolong past the options themselves; additionally they apply to the constructing blocks used to assemble these options. As software complexity rises, our prospects are more and more requesting methods to simplify improvement, improve collaboration, and create strong options with fewer integration factors. By unifying our choices, we will prioritize investments in supporting the ways in which builders are constructing enterprise purposes right now.  

Integrating with Azure options

Our prospects search to ship enterprise affect by leveraging AI providers and instruments inside their options. The inclusion of Azure Maps within the Azure platform brings geospatial knowledge nearer to different Azure providers, facilitating seamless integration. Azure Maps prospects already profit from AI deeply embedded in industry-leading capabilities like geocoding. Being a part of the Azure ecosystem additionally streamlines entry to complementary providers from the Azure Market. At Microsoft Construct 2024, we introduced the supply of NVIDIA’s cuOpt service throughout the Azure Market. NVIDIA cuOpt, a world-record holding graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated optimization AI microservice, assists groups in fixing advanced routing issues with a number of constraints. By combining cuOpt with Azure Maps, prospects can obtain dynamic routing and real-time re-optimization at scale, driving efficiencies and income progress. Azure Maps, alongside the Azure Market, opens up new avenues for innovation, enabling companies to sort out numerous challenges.    

The aggregation of geospatial data with extra knowledge unlocks new insights for companies, enabling them to cut back working prices, generate new income, and ship higher providers to their prospects. Azure Maps offers a holistic view, permitting you to know not solely what occurred but additionally the place it occurred. By leveraging Azure Maps, you may make clever choices and pivot sooner by correlating the placement of your corporation parts along with your general enterprise objectives. This orientation empowers your crew to grasp the state of affairs and chart a path ahead.

Begin enhancing your location knowledge right now

Understanding “the place” interprets to figuring out the way to enhance and transfer forward. With Azure Maps, your group positive factors simpler entry to, utilization of, and insights from location knowledge. By combining our industry-leading cloud infrastructure with correct, dependable location knowledge and Microsoft purposes like Energy BI, you possibly can generate predictive insights for your corporation. 

Discover our new Azure Maps options. 

¹ Azure Maps is the following technology geospatial cloud service provided by Microsoft Maps. It has been created particularly, with Microsoft Builders and Enterprise Clients in thoughts, to offer scalable location capabilities and related geographical knowledge. 

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) permits digital transformation for the period of an clever cloud and an clever edge. Its mission is to empower each individual and each group on the planet to realize extra.