Microsoft MapPoint 2009 to be released on July 21, 2008.

I just did a quick search for "mappoint 2009", and it returned 5 pages of results So it's not going to be MapPoint 2008 - it's going to be MapPoint 2009 !!!

That's very good news for people who have been waiting very long time to update the current version of MapPoint 2006. It also is very good news for people who use Streets & Trips 2008 or AutoRoute 2007, because MapPoint 2009 may have new features which we may later see in Streets & Trips 2009 and AutoRoute 2009.

According to Amazon.com, MS MapPoint 2009 will start selling on July 21, 2008.

A search for Streets Trips 2009 gets results, but nothing was found for Autoroute 2009.

toyfountain, great catch on the Streets & Trips 2009! I checked several of the retailers, including Amazon, but no one has an ETA, yet.

Usually new AutoRoute version appears on Google Products search much later, because the search engine is, as far as I know, only for the USA retailers. Not too many stores carry MS AutoRoute on this side of the ocean. Usually Amazon in the UK advertises AR first.

Wasn't there speculation that Autoroute was getting dropped?

The same was feared for Mappoint because the expected 2-year update hadn't come. But actually, Mappoint has been released on anywhere from a 2-4 year schedule.

The lack of a 2008 update for Autoroute is more significant, because Autoroute is an annual product like S&T.

taoyue, yes, you are absolutely correct. It will be very interesting to see if Microsoft AutoRoute 2009 comes out. If MS MapPoint 2009 Europe comes out, it may give us some hope we may also see MS AutoRoute 2009 later in the year.

Only the time will tell (since no one from MSFT wants to jump in here to tell us ).

Here's an update on the release date for Microsoft MapPoint 2009: The product will be available on September 1, 2008 (not on July 23, 2008). Microsoft Streets and Trips 2009 will release about a month after that.

Are you sure it's not out already? A few websites and they report they have it in stock.

Amazon is not selling Mappoint 2009, even as a preorder. The link is an ANTonline listing on Amazon.

Newegg is usually reliable, however. I'm puzzled.

Actually, Amazon is selling it. For some reason it's not the first one that comes up though.

That's funny. On the other hand, Amazon takes such a large cut of third-party sales that they're better off if someone else sells it, than if they sold it themselves.

Note, however, that "Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks" means they don't have any copies in stock. You often see this with college textbooks -- it'll say "1 copy left, ships immediately" then it'll go up to "2 to 3 weeks" once someone snaps up that copy.

I emailed Eric Frost last night regarding MapPoint 2009 availability in stores and on MSDN. He has a better chance of knowing what is going on with MapPoint, since he runs two websites dedicated to MapPoint: The Magazine for MapPoint and MapPoint Forums, and he also sells MapPoint himself.

Here's his reply:

In a day or two I should be able to take Microsoft MapPoint 2009 with GPS for a drive. I will then post screenshots and some info.

That's a fake screenshot.. Did you do that yourself? You can tell the 2009 is not angled properly. When I get home I'll take a box shot. I bought a copy from Beach Audio, don't ask

Now that you say so, yes, it doesn't look completely right. They would have made a better job of it, if they had just cut the number 6, and then flipped it on it's head . If I recall correctly, Microsoft has always created a completely new box design for new MapPoint version, so it indeed would be unusual to see the same box for MapPoint 2009 as we saw for MapPoint 2006 three years ago. I'm looking forward to your photo .