Locked in a game of leap frog with rival Google, Microsoft offers developers a carrot in the form of better community in order to put the momentum back behind its own mapping software engine.

For this hands-on lesson in using Java to connect to the MapPoint Web Service, we show you how to use the MapPoint Customer Service Site, which lets you upload your own custom data sources so you can geocode and search for your own store location or special points of interest.

MLS, being a Web service, is pretty straightforward from a programmer's perspective. But for a project manager, there can be other tricky issues. Here's a peek at a real-world project.

There's a huge difference between traditional Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and the mapping and location services offered by MapPoint Web Service. Alan Zeichick explains the what the differences are.

An enterprise's existing applications, such as in the areas of service dispatch, fleet management, or asset tracking, can be enriched using location-aware technologies. In several scenarios, Alan Zeichick explains how you can add genuine value to applications using Microsoft MapPoint Location Server.

Your friendly neighborhood realtor might value property by three factors, "location, location, and location." Applications developers will soon be chanting those same words, as they begin leveraging the power of location-exploiting technologies like Microsoft's MapPoint Web Service and the newly released MapPoint Location Server. In this article, Alan Zeichick explains how the MapPoint Web Service works from a programmatic perspective.

With Microsoft MapPoint Web Service and MapPoint Location Server, you can add customizable, real-time features to your applications and Web sites more easily than ever before. Best of all, explains Alan Zeichick, these SOAP-based services are truly platform- and device-independent, and are ready to power up your Windows, .NET, J2EE, mobile wireless, and Smartphone applications.