Microsoft MapPoint is an affordable business mapping application that can easily plot geospatial data for for your business. It can also geocode locations and plot routes. It does ship with its own up to date  road, address, and demographic datasets. This combination make MapPoint a very affordable alternative to an expensive GIS and very expensive map data for a wide range of business applications.

 

MapPoint 2011 can tell you a story visually to key stakeholders and helps you do business in a whole new way:

 

Mapping business data and identifying new business opportunities easily are just some of the tasks you can do with MapPoint 2011. You can also create information-rich maps that show data relationships and business trends, enhance your GPS capabilities, and track your locations in real time so that you don't miss the turn-by-turn directions you need to get you where you need to be.

• Streamline your travel and create maps using custom Map Settings to display your data with selected details

• Dramatically improve decision-making by bringing clarity to tabular data

• Seamlessly integrate maps into the work you do in Office programs, such as in Word and PowerPoint

• Optimize trips through more efficient routing, navigation, and location tracking

• Send point-of-interest and business card details to your mobile device

• Get over 300 pushpin images from previous MapPoint versions

• Use updated geographic and demographic data sets in MapPoint to display trends and illustrate key points on maps

• Use Bing maps to quickly find listings when you're online and add them to a route by using descriptive words such as "coffee" and "restaurant" to find points near your location

 

Use MapPoint to plot pushpin data points. MapPoint can plot numeric data using a range of different map types. These include shaded area, pie charts, sized dots,  and bar charts. These map types can be used to plot the built-in demographic data, or your own data. MapPoint can plot data that is in Excel, Access, or text file formats. It can also plot data from external OLE DB and ODBC databases.

 

 

The Terrain Map style uses a base map with terrain and elevation information. This is useful for a visually pleasing “atlas-style” map, but it is not appropriate for the overlay of large amounts of information.

 

 

MapPoint works with the connected GPS to provide in-car navigation of a route; or to track the current location. Data can also be transferred to / from a navigation device using the GPS format.

 

MapPoint can calculate the best route from one location to another. The routing engine is a very powerful engine, supporting features such as:

• Fastest or shortest routes

• Preferred roads

• Road speeds

• Travel times

• Estimated driving costs

• Multiple way points

• Optimum (“Traveling Salesman”) way point ordering

• Driving time limits and rest stops

MapPoint is also capable of navigating a calculated route using an attached GPS device.

 

As well as being able to plot pushpin data points, MapPoint can plot numeric data using a range of different map types. These include shaded area, pie charts, sized dots,  and bar charts.

These map types can be used to plot the built-in demographic data, or your own data. MapPoint can plot data that is in Excel, Access, or text file formats. It can also plot data from external OLE DB and ODBC databases.

 

MapPoint can be used to display and analyze geospatial data, and present the results in a range of different ways, such as:

• Printing your maps

• Creating interactive embedded maps in other documents

• Pasting static map images into another document

• Creating web pages

• Interacting with Microsoft Office