REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 1, 2001 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of Streets & Trips 2002 mapping software, the latest version of its No. 1-selling travel product.* Streets & Trips provides up-to-date and comprehensive maps for every ZIP code in the United States and Canada.
Whether people are traveling across town or across country, Streets & Trips 2002 makes it easy for them to get where they need to go and find points of interest along the way. Unlike online mapping resources, Streets & Trips is loaded onto a home PC or laptop so travelers always have access to their maps without waiting on a slow connection to the Internet.
Streets & Trips offers multiple destination routing capabilities, including address-to-address driving directions, to help travelers find the best route for reaching multiple places. Advanced search capabilities help travelers find an exact address for where they want to go without requiring that they fill in detailed information as with online mapping services. With Streets & Trips, people can search and plan their route effortlessly over 6 million miles of streets and highways and more than 800,000 points of interest including restaurants, ATMs, hotels, cinemas and more. Monthly road construction updates are available online and can be downloaded any time the user is connected to the Internet.
Personalizing Maps in a Familiar Environment
Streets & Trips caters to individual travel needs and makes it easy for people to personalize their maps within the familiar Microsoft® Office interface. Many travelers, for example, are daunted by the task of finding ATMs or restaurants when they are on the road and visiting new cities. The Find Nearby Places feature allows users to see all the points of interest in a designated area, including addresses and phone numbers in many cases. Users can choose to show or hide categories of places and personalize maps with an assortment of 256 pushpin images. By selecting an address and marking it with a pushpin or using the drawing tools to write on their maps and highlight areas, travelers can easily identify destinations. Customized maps print clearly, unlike the sometimes-distorted Web printouts. With five popular formats to choose from, travelers can print their maps or insert the personalized map into brochures, invitations and Web pages, or share them in e-mail across the Internet.
Finding the Ideal Route When There Are Multiple Stops to Make
Whether it is a soccer mom on carpool duty or a sales person needing to make several calls a day, the user is likely to be on a tight schedule and doesn’t have time to get lost. With Streets & Trips 2002 Route Planner, users can determine the ideal route to reach all their stops on time, along with driving directions from address to address. Travel times, length of stops, current fuel costs, average driving speeds and road preferences can be customized to ensure that Streets & Trips calculates all aspects of a trip to the user’s requirements. And with the Optimize Route option, Streets & Trips can plot the best route to meet all traveling criteria. Drivers who want to avoid a particular intersection or add a new attraction to their route can use Microsoft’s patented Snap Routing to personalize their route by simply dragging the route to their preferred road or roads. Driving directions will be automatically recalculated.
Streets & Trips Gives Travelers Total Mobility
Whether travelers use a laptop or a Pocket PC, Streets & Trips 2002 gives them complete access to their maps without going online. Streets & Trips 2002 includes Pocket Streets, which allows Pocket PC owners to use maps they have created in Streets & Trips on their mobile device.
Streets & Trips 2002 will be available for an estimated retail price of $44.95 (U.S.) and $54.95 (CDN) with a $10 (U.S.)/$15 (CDN) rebate.** The rebate offer expires Dec. 31, 2003. The offer is valid in the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada only.
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.
* Source: NPD INTELECT Market Tracking, May 1998-May 2001. Based on total U.S. retail sales.
** Reseller prices may vary.
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