Do You Recommend Google Maps API or Microsoft Live Maps?

KSobby writes "The organization that I work for is going to be redoing our website in .Net/AJAX. On the site, our members will have profile pages listing where their organizations are located (our members are scattered throughout the world) as well as other pertinent information for the general public. It is a non-profit organization, so funds are tight. My question to you: If we include maps, which API do we go with: Google or Microsoft? We're in a Microsoft environment (we're non-profit and Microsoft basically gives us everything for free) but the ubiquity of Google may be enough to sway us. Has anyone used either extensively? Used them in conjunction with .Net?"

In my experience

[El Lobo]

In my (little) experience the MS API is a lot clearer and "logical" to my .net trained brain than Google's. But in the end, my experience is that both work reasonable well, and leaving politics and idealogical issues aside, I would say, test both and choose the one you like more.

Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same product, but Google maps works with more browsers. Sounds like an easy choice to me.

go with google

[ILuvRamen]

I say go with Google. If their map system suddenly changes they'll at least be smart enough to include legacy support or do something remotely responsible and there's no way that their entire map system would just disappear. As for Microsoft, they change their names and systems more often than I change my pants and if suddenly all of that new Microsoft Live crap disappeared, nobody would be surprised at all. Just think how many new Microsoft inventions/projects/experiments there were that either didn't do well enough so they cut them or they did really well and they cut them anyway for who knows what reason.

Stick with MS

[everphilski]

Yeah, MS Virtual Earth (which is what Microsoft Live Maps is a derivative of) integrates with .NET... so stick with it and you can benefit from code reuse.

Depends on whether you want to be screwed

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on whether you prefer to be screwed clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Google

[spykemail]

I'm not going to tell you which one to go with because most of their merits have already been covered, but I will say this: you should not simply choose Micro$oft because you're already using a lot of their technologies. Look at the actual merits of each and choose that way - not by which company has a stronger death grip on certain markets.

"Doing your website" in a programming language

[yelvington]

The organization that I work for is going to be redoing our website in .Net/AJAX.

This is sooooo 1999.

You should be using a CMS/framework where such issues have been resolved, [drupal.org] and focus your time/energy on the (few) places where you can create unique value.

Re:Do both. Seriously.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's only true if Microsoft also support all modern browsers and can be counted on to continue to do so.

Dog turds are also free.

Re:Google Maps

[kripkenstein]

It took me 4 hours to port our software to Vista [...] The trick to MS backwards compatibility is to not use the undocumented shit.

That might be true, but how is it relevant as a comparison to Google?

The issue isn't Microsoft's desktop backwards compatibility issues (which is debatable in itself). Thing is, Windows and MSN/Live/etc. just happen to exist in the same company, otherwise, nothing is really shared between them. When you compare Microsoft to Google with respect to maps APIs, you need to compare Google to MSN/Live/etc., which has seen many name and strategy changes and is far less mature than Google's offerings. Google APIs are consequently more stable and less likely to change.

A conservative approach will therefore recommend Google APIs. They are more seasoned, more tested, work on more browsers, and used successfully by far more organizations and businesses.

Re:go with google

[fredrik70]

quite rubbish, If MS does anything it's hanging on to their old API for far too long. That's why they're so bloody bloated, remember? They might be happy to invent new ways of doing things quite often, but they keep the old stuff, hence the mess they're are in now with Vista - trying to make sure *all* ways of doing things work!

Re:Use Mapquest Posts

[Nasarius]

The semi-sane way to do it is have a class that knows how to encode URLs for HTTP GET requests, and pass it a map of parameters. It still boils down to a lot of concatenations, but at least then your code isn't unreadable garbage.

Re:How about this then?

[markjhood2003]

hopefully now you have more insight into how seriously we treat end user data

How seriously you treat our data doesn't matter; if the government and its legal apparatus wants to get our data from you, they will. You shouldn't be collecting our data to begin with. Google has no better policies than Microsoft in that regard.

Re:I let google answer

[bikin]

I guess it is a tribute to Google Search integrity that it may place competitors' products before its own (i.e. Google is not cheating)