The Guardian.co.uk story reports that the Redmond giant has bought Multimap. They say that "Microsoft said that Multimap will complement offerings such as Virtual Earth, Live Search, Windows Live services, MSN and its new $6.5bn (£3.2bn) acquisition aQuantive."

This acquisition is "an attempt by Microsoft to compete with Google, whose Google Maps and Earth tools dominate the global online mapping and location market."

According to Sharon Baylay who's the general manager of Microsoft's online services group. "This acquisition will play a significant role in the future growth of our search business and presents a huge opportunity to expand our platform business beyond the UK and globally,"

Jeff Kelisky, the chief executive of Multimap said "Partnering with Microsoft gives us a world of new opportunities to build our mapping services into new technologies and applications."

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