[jaggederest]

I don't think it's wrong to criticize them for missing this as an opportunity.

I remember playing with it at the time, it was really revolutionary. There was literally nothing like this available to the general public before this.

And who owns mapping these days? Google. It's pretty sad that Microsoft wasn't able to turn a six year head start into a reasonable business.

[santoshalper]

That's sort of been the story of Microsoft for the past 15 years or so, lots of cool ideas, then a failure to execute and make a great product out of them. I wonder if young engineers these days realize how formidable Microsoft used to be. There was a time when having MSFT in your rearview mirror meant you were in deep shit. Now, they're just another big IT company.

[MichaelGG]

You think that's sad? MSN Messenger had millions of users, complete with their "friends". And they failed to turn that into any social network worth anything. Duh.

(Same with Skype.)

[dhotson]

Check out MapBox if you haven't already. There's still some room for competition. :-)