REDMOND, Wash., April 11, 2000 — For all who remember family driving vacations as endless, a new type of journey awaits. Gone are the days of sitting on a hot vinyl seat while Mom and Dad argue about which exit to take on the jam-packed highway and exactly where that great hotel with the pool and game room was located. Launched today, Microsoft Corp.’s newest all-in-one mapping and trip-planning solution, Streets & Trips 2001, offers a way for frazzled families to pinpoint their exact location at every turn.
Tourism offices across America can get at least 20 to 30 calls a day from vacationers asking where the most basic things like banks, hotels or restaurants are located in their cities. Microsoft® Streets & Trips 2001 helps fulfill this need. By taking a laptop along for the ride and using GPS technology, travelers can easily access accurate maps and location data. That way, they can see in real time whether they’re really on the way to Grandma’s house or headed straight for a swamp.
Families who prefer a slightly more traditional method can use the software to plan their trip on a home computer and print out a map to take on the more than 6 million miles of United State’s and Canada’s long and winding roads. Even the most directionally challenged can get from Point A to Point B quickly with door-to-door directions: Streets & Trips 2001 features highlighted maps and step-by-step instructions. It also features special drawing tools: a highlighter to delineate an important route, a radius to encircle a must-see area, and virtual pushpins to pinpoint final destinations and points of interest. Snap Routing lets users easily modify an existing route to avoid a construction nightmare; they can add a last-minute visit to Lego World, and it recalculates the map, directions and travel times automatically.
“The latest version of Streets & Trips provides families with all the tools they need to plan that perfect summer driving trip without the hassles of yesteryear,”
said Michael Graff, product unit manager for Streets & Trips at Microsoft.
“Streets & Trips is accurate and easy to use, calculates directions, locates points of interest, and is a far cry from conventional maps.”
Finding the best places to stop or shop along the way is also a point-and-click affair with Streets & Trips 2001. A family looking for the nearest diner or steak house is bound to find something to satisfy everyone’s demands with more than 409,000 restaurant listings to choose from. And when family members are ready to hit the sack, they can check out more than 68,000 hotel and motel listings, while heartier souls can tap into a comprehensive database of more than 9,000 popular campgrounds.
Because traveling with children demands flexibility, patience and more than a passing familiarity with bathroom breaks, Streets & Trips 2001 identifies 1,200 rest areas and 41,000 gas stations to help parents promptly satisfy the inevitable backseat cry of
“I have to go!”
Streets & Trips 2001 successfully combines accurate street-level mapping and flexible trip-planning technologies in one comprehensive product that enables users to calculate door-to-door driving directions throughout the United States and Canada quickly and easily. Using high-quality map data from renowned geographic resources such as GDT, Navigation Technologies and Compusearch Micromarketing Data and Systems, as well as content from infoUSA and Woodalls, Streets and Trips 2001 provides families with an effective tool that helps them plan excursions – whether it’s across the town, the state or the entire country.
Microsoft Streets & Trips 2001 is available in stores now, at an estimated retail price of $44.95 (U.S.).
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software – any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
GDT and the GDT logo are trademarks of Geographic Data Technology Inc. NAVTECH and NAVTECH ON BOARD are trademarks of Navigation Technologies Corp. Compusearch and the Compusearch logo are registered trademarks of Compusearch Micromarketing Data and Systems Ltd., Toronto, Canada. Woodall’s and the Woodall’s logo are registered trademarks of Woodall Publications Corp. infoUSA is a trademark and the infoUSA logo is a registered trademark of infoUSA Inc.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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