Bing Map-less, Disappointment in MIX'11 and Not Innovative Enough?

Question

I was looking at http://live.visitmix.com/ and http://channel9.msdn.com/events/mix/mix11 and noticed that there wasn't any Bing Maps stuff released, announced or event talked about at the MIX'11 conference. I was looking forward to seeing some cool Bing Maps stuff shown off, but that just didn't happen. "MIX is a gathering of developers, designers, UX experts and business professionals creating the most innovative and profitable consumer sites on the web." However, it appears that Microsoft no longer thinks that Bing Maps is innovative.

It's sort of a let down. There is so much cool stuff that can be done with Bing Maps that people don't know about, and it really seems that Microsoft isn't doing what they could to show off the platform.

Another let down, that is related to this, is the fact that http://microsoft.com/maps no longer links to or shows the Bing Maps Silverlight control can be used for building web applications. The new Ajax 7 control is great, but the Silverlight control is still far superior! Yeah, if everyone used IE9 things could work great with HTML5 and faster JavaScript, but the fact is that most people are using IE7/8 and Firefox. Plus, the biggest issue with HTML5 and JavaScript development in relation to the Ajax 7 control is that the Silverlight tooling makes the HTML5/JavaScript tooling look like a joke. Also, I see that the interviews some of the MVP's did at http://www.microsoft.com/maps/apitalk.aspx were all edited to not mention Silveright at all.

Does anyone else feel the same?

Update: Don't get me wrong, I love JavaScript; I would love to use JavaScript for .NET/SL development (if only MS didn't abandon Managed JScript.) I just feel that MS isn't doing all they can to promote and grow the Bing Maps platform and what it can offer businesses and consumers.

 

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Microsoft MVP - Bing Maps
Blog: http://pietschsoft.com | Web.Maps.VE - ASP.NET AJAX Bing Maps Server Control

Answer 1

I was at Mix11 and I thought the same thing. I hope Microsoft will continue to push the limits with Bing Maps. But I do like for them to continue pushing the AJAX stuff too and not just Silverlight as for my needs AJAX is the best way.

Answer 2

think Alastair managed to slip silverlight in once

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Brian @ Earthware - UK interactive mapping web developers http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog | http://www.twitter.com/earthware | Windows Live Developer MVP

Answer 3

@Earthware - Does that mean that I win the "Silverlight" bingo game? What was the prize?!

I think I might be unusual in that I've always favoured the AJAX control over the Silverlight control (maybe that's because I often work in environments where client machines are locked down and the Silverlight plugin isn't available), so I'm personally not concerned about its dwindling presence. (I am sad about the demise of 3D support, but that's a separate issue and at least I have a workaround for that ;)

I guess, playing devil's advocate and sticking up for MS, they only have a limited amount of resource and they therefore need to concentrate that resource to target only certain platforms. For whatever strategic, political, consumer, or other reasons, that resource has recently been going into the AJAX control and the REST/SDS services. I would have loved to have seen some new announcements concerning these at Mix, but for whatever reason they weren't forthcoming. This might be because there isn't anything new to announce, it might be because there's lots of development going on but it's not quite ready - one thing we've seen in recent years is that, considering the competitive commercial nature of the web-mapping industry, there is very little (if any) information released about new features until they are released - the AJAX v7 control, for example, basically appeared out of nowhere.

You never know - we might see a new Silverlight 5/3D combined replacement API appear tomorrow. But I wouldn't hold your breath.

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twitter: @alastaira blog: http://alastaira.wordpress.com/

Answer 4

@Earthware - I'll have to listen to Alastair's again, I must have missed the single reference to Silverlight. :)

@tanoshimi - I know I sounded a little on the negative side in the first post, but my main point of it was to stir up some interesting discussions

I have been assuming that eventually we would see new Bing Maps 3D support in the Silverlight control. It is very well possible that when they announced retiring the ActiveX 3D control, they started working on a Silverlight based replacement. I am hoping this is the case, and full 3D is definitely the next step in the evolution of the platform.

I am actually a little torn between Silverlight and Ajax myself. I prefer the JavaScript language and all its dynamic-ness, but yet I also really like working with the rich-ness of XAML and the higher performance of Silverlight. It does make me wonder what direction they are going forward in when they take off all reference to the Silverlight control from http://microsoft.com/maps

It also sure would be nice if the Bing Maps forums were split off on their own and separated Ajax, Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 and Web Services into their own individual forums.

In regards to the competitiveness of the web mapping space and how Ajax v7 was released out of nowhere without warning, I hope Microsoft has a long term plan of where the platform is going. It sometimes seems like they haven't really thought stuff through, especially since Ajax v7 was buggy the day it was released and they talk about how it's supposed to be modular, but it doesn't have any documented plugin mechanism similar to jQuery or other javascript frameworks. What's the standard way of writing Ajax v7 plugins? Currently there isn't one. Also, why wasn't the Infobox support written as a plugin?

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Microsoft MVP - Bing Maps
Blog: http://pietschsoft.com | Web.Maps.VE - ASP.NET AJAX Bing Maps Server Control

Answer 5

I think that this answers the question ;)

http://readwriteworld.cloudapp.net/

Swimming in the Read/Write World

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twitter: @alastaira blog: http://alastaira.wordpress.com/

Answer 6

Nice link. Impressive stuff

Answer 7

@tanoshimi - This is definitely some interesting stuff! I wonder if it's really 3D or if it just simulates it. We'll find out when ever this stuff makes it's way into the API's for us to play around with. It also makes me wonder what will happen to the "Read / Write World" name once it all gets combined with Bing Maps, if that ever happens.

So, where exactly did you find these links posted? Or were you just guessing "*.cloudapp.net" addresses and stumble on it? :)

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Microsoft MVP - Bing Maps
Blog: http://pietschsoft.com | Web.Maps.VE - ASP.NET AJAX Bing Maps Server Control

Answer 8

Blaise just did a presentation on it at the Where 2.0 conference yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X9u4JG9H6E&feature=autoshare

I wrote a blog post this morning with my initial impressions: http://alastaira.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/the-bing-read-write-world/

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twitter: @alastaira blog: http://alastaira.wordpress.com/

Answer 9

I guess the next question is:

When will this stuff make it into the Bing Maps API's for us to implement within our own applications?

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Microsoft MVP - Bing Maps
Blog: http://pietschsoft.com | Web.Maps.VE - ASP.NET AJAX Bing Maps Server Control