To accelerate innovation, Microsoft will unify Bing Maps for Enterprise with Azure Maps

Microsoft recently announced the unification of data and technologies in Bing Maps for Enterprise with Azure Maps, a move aimed at providing customers with an enhanced and AI-driven feature set of Microsoft Azure.

In an official blog post highlighting the upsides of the move, Nick Lee, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft Maps and Local, said,

Azure Maps introduces several features not found in Bing Maps for Enterprise, including advanced service authentication methods, data residency compliance, geolocation, weather information, and custom indoor maps. Unifying our enterprise maps offerings under Azure Maps will greatly simplify our enterprise mapping offerings making it easier for customers to buy and use our services in a way that is consistent with other services at Microsoft.

Microsoft confirmed that Bing Maps for Enterprise will work for now and is set to be retired on June 30, 2028. Although the Redmond-based tech giant won’t allow new subscriptions.

Existing customers with an enterprise license will have until June 30, 2028, to make the transition to Azure Maps, while the free and basic license holders will be forced to switch by June 30, 2025.

Nick Lee then goes on to highlight how services like NVIDIA’s cuOpt, available in the Azure Marketplace, will streamline the experience in Azure Maps.

NVIDIA cuOpt, a world-record holding graphics processing unit (GPU)-accelerated optimization AI microservice, assists teams in solving complex routing problems with multiple constraints. By combining cuOpt with Azure Maps, customers can achieve dynamic routing and real-time re-optimization at scale, driving efficiencies and revenue growth. Azure Maps, alongside the Azure Marketplace, opens up new avenues for innovation, enabling businesses to tackle diverse challenges.

With the transition from Bing Maps for Enterprise to Azure Map, the next-gen geospatial cloud service, customers stand to benefit from additional and valuable data insights along with the AI-powered feature set, helping them reduce operating costs and boost revenue, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft’s native cloud offering has, in recent years, been the center of focus and has witnessed significant improvements, including AI integration. As a result, Microsoft Azure emerged as a viable alternative to Google Cloud and AWS in the cloud computing landscape.

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