We are thrilled to announce the unification of Bing Maps for Enterprise (BME) with Azure Maps, marking a significant milestone in our geospatial services at Microsoft. Azure Maps now boasts a robust stack of geospatial offerings, leveraging the powerful capabilities of Microsoft Maps, which also drives Bing Maps (our consumer maps experience). Over the past year, our team has dedicated significant time and effort to combine the strengths of Bing Maps for Enterprise into Azure Maps, enhancing our global quality and coverage.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a Program Manager (PM) at Microsoft? As someone who often fields this question, I’d like to offer some insights into the fascinating world of product development and customer-centric decision-making that defines the role of a PM at one of the world’s leading tech companies.

At Microsoft, our mission revolves around creating products and services that address real-world needs and deliver tangible value to our users. As a Program Manager, my primary responsibility is to delve into the evolving landscape of customer demands and technological advancements to identify opportunities for enhancing our products.

Maximize Visibility

In today’s digital age, the visibility of your business is paramount. Once you’ve captured customer interest online, the next crucial step is guiding them to your physical storefronts. Azure Maps Store Locator streamlines this journey, offering an interactive and intuitive experience that leads customers right to your doorstep.

Simplifying Store Discovery

Creating a basic store locator using Azure Maps is already a straightforward task, involving the loading of store locations onto a map and potentially setting up a simple search functionality. However, for larger organizations managing thousands of locations and requiring advanced filtering options, a more sophisticated solution is essential. Fortunately, the Azure Maps Store Locator, combining the power of various Azure services, caters precisely to these needs.

We are excited to announce that we have developed a new and improved style for our maps across Microsoft. Azure Maps now utilizes the same vector tiles and satellite imagery directly as our other Microsoft mapping platforms, including our Bing Maps consumer site and more. This updated style introduces a fresh cartographic identity across Microsoft, focusing on enhancing usability, information clarity, and aesthetic appeal.

Key Features of the New Style

1. Style Choices: As before, Azure Maps allows you and your customers to choose from several styles, such as:
   • Road
   • Night
   • Hybrid
   • Grayscale (dark and light)
   • Terra
   • High Contrast (dark and light)

2. Fine-Tuned Colors and Information Density: We have carefully considered feedback from our previous styles. The result is a balance of colors and information density designed to make our maps more easily consumable across different zoom levels and device profiles.

Azure Maps Creator is a powerful product that transforms your static floor plans into dynamic, interactive indoor maps for your business locations. It allows you to overlay technical building plans ontop of Azure Maps, enabling the visualization of IoT data such as temperature, occupancy, and other location-based services. The onboarding process is streamlined, requiring only the preparation and uploading of your DWG floorplan files (the native file format for Autodesk’s AutoCAD software) into Azure Maps Creator.

In the evolving landscape of remote work and sustainability, the optimization of physical spaces has become increasingly important. Microsoft is at the forefront of this transformation, utilizing Azure Maps Creator to enhance the management of its diverse global workspaces. This product is essential for facilities managers, providing dynamic, interactive indoor mapping solutions that allow for real-time assessment of space and resources, quick response to critical issues, and seamless adaptation to the needs of a hybrid workforce—all while minimizing environmental impact.