Microsoft’s secret weapon against Google Maps — open source

“The New York Times reported recently that a variety of
companies have started to defect from using Google Maps because of
the high fees charged for the service, and instead have turned to
getting mapping data for free from OpenStreetMap. The mobile social
media service FourSquare has jumped ship, and for iPhoto, the iOS
photo management app, Apple has switched from Google to
OpenStreetMap.

“Behind the scenes, spurring all this on, is Microsoft.
Microsoft hired OpenStreetMap founder Steve Coast to work for Bing
as Principal Architect for Bing Mobile. Coast works on both Bing
and OpenStreetMap. In a blog post announcing Coast’s hiring back in
November 2010, Microsoft said Coast will ‘develop better mapping
experiences for our customers and partners, and lead efforts to
engage with OpenStreetMap and other open source and open data
projects.'”

Complete Story