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Microsoft and Maporama International Announce a Major Technological and Commercial Partnership in the Mapping Market

Posted on: Thursday, 28 June 2007, 09:00 CDT

Microsoft Corp. and Maporama International (Paris:MLMAP), the European leader of geolocalization and navigation services, today announced the completion of a major technological and commercial partnership in the mapping market.

Microsoft's Virtual Earth mapping platform featuring roadmaps, satellite and aerial imagery, plus bird's eye and 3-D views will be available for Maporama Intl corporate customers. They will benefit from increasingly innovative and complete solutions to meet their business needs: geolocalization, business intelligence, geomarketing, and mobility.

"It has never been so easy for a company to add value to its applications and web sites thanks to these new customized mapping solutions," said Arnaud Gstach, Virtual Earth Business Development Manager for Southern Europe. The partnership concluded between Microsoft and Maporama Intl ushers in a new era of services for the mapping market by offering companies the innovation of Virtual Earth through Maporama Intl. solutions and service platform.

Developed by Microsoft, Virtual Earth quickly became the leading corporate mapping platform, used by over 1000 enterprise customers worldwide. With complete road maps as well as aerial, bird's eye, and 3-D imagery, Virtual Earth is the ideal platform for various mapping and geo-spatial usages. "Web 2.0 is providing new opportunities and enabling our customers to re-think their solutions by easily integrating next-generation mapping services. Now interactions between maps and data are easy and accessible to all," said Arnaud Gstach.

Leader in the navigation and geolocalization market with over 500 customers worldwide, Maporama Intl develops and markets a broad range of corporate services based on a multi-platform technological infrastructure. "Maporama Intl covers all corporate mapping needs and offers: for marketing departments, turnkey solutions or solutions for integrating maps, itineraries, and searches and for functional departments, the solutions connect to business applications (ERP, CRM, SFA, etc.). For mobile users, Maporama Intl also ensures full access to information with GPS navigation solutions, trip planning assistance for sales teams, and fleet management," said Danièle Drahy, Director of Operations for Maporama Intl.

"Thanks to Virtual Earth, the Maporama Intl service offer now includes fundamental mapping data enabling our customers to design new types of applications. Several industries (real estate, tourism, assistance, retail, call centers, banking and insurance) have expressed an interest in multi-dimensional visualization (bird's eye and 3-D views) in additional to traditional mapping", said Danièle Drahy.

The Maporama Intl platform will naturally and transparently integrate the Virtual Earth platform for its customers. They will benefit from a new service and a compelling user experience. Furthermore, the huge investments made by Microsoft in this market worldwide ensure that Maporama Intl customers will take advantage of major future innovations."

About Virtual Earth

The Virtual Earth platform is Microsoft's next-generation integrated set of powerful online mapping and search services that utilize unique bird's-eye, 3-D, aerial and satellite imagery. The Virtual Earth platform powers a variety of consumer, enterprise and government applications that enable people to learn, discover and explore a specific location. Virtual Earth also powers Live Search Maps, Microsoft's online local search and mapping Web site -- this power can be in anyone's hands too, for customized applications. More information about the Virtual Earth platform is available at http://www.microsoft.com/virtualearth/default.mspx.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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About Maporama International

Maporama International is a global player on the location-based services market offering solutions of store locators, fleet management GPS navigation as well as a collection of integration and development APIs. These services are delivered on any kind of devices (PC, PDA, mobile phones, MP3 players) and using the most detailed and extended cartographic coverage available on the market. Quoted on the Euronext Paris stock exchange (ISIN Code: FR0010215202-MLMAP), Maporama International has more than 500 customers in more than 20 countries, including Accor, Delphi Automotive, Europcar, MAAF, Hitachi, Renault and L'Oréal. Headquartered in Paris (France), the company has a direct presence in Spain, Italy, Germany, South Africa, Canada and in the USA.

Source: Business Wire

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