I am often asked by public sector customers about the ability to consume Virtual Earth imagery outside of Virtual Earth. This was recently made possible within ESRI ArcGIS tools and is now made possible completely offline through two new resellers, i-cubed and MapMart.com. The following are points from an announcement that was distributed late last week.

Why is the Virtual Earth team licensing imagery for offline use?

Our high-resolution UltraCam ortho-imagery is prized for GIS, urban planning, engineering and other applications that are often performed in offline desktop environments, yet our existing Virtual Earth offerings prohibit any offline use of our data. By offering our data in an offline mode, we complement our online Virtual Earth web service offerings, increase Microsoft and Virtual Earth brand awareness worldwide, and generate revenues. These groundbreaking deals are the first milestone in Virtual Earth's monetization of MS-owned geospatial products for offline use.   

How is this Being Done?

Our resellers will host the data and provide sales, marketing and fulfillment services. We selected i-cubed, LLC and Mapmart.com as our first resellers. Both are top-notch companies with proven leadership in the geodata markets, and we’re excited to have them lead our channel sales.

· i-cubed, LLC is a top-tier provider of imagery, data distribution software, and image processing services to governments and commercial entities worldwide. As the exclusive data provider for ESRI’s ArcGIS users who want to use data locally, they will offer VE’s UltraCam imagery through the ESRI platform (Beta) and through a standalone web site they’ll launch in the coming weeks.

· MapMart.com is a high volume geodata provider with strong experience in the prosumer market. They just launched VE’s UltraCam data on their website last week.  Their announcement can be read here: http://www.amerisurv.com/content/view/5334/2/ 

What’s Available and Who Needs it?

Currently we have over 200 cities of mosaicked color airborne imagery collected at 6” nominal resolution, averaging less than two years old. The 6” spatial resolution rivals any large-scale commercial source today, and our newest processing techniques produce orthomosaics with almost no building lean in the image--invaluable for unobstructed views into areas with tall buildings, etc.  As Microsoft acquires and processes imagery for more cities around the world, the archive is expected to grow substantially. This imagery is invaluable for urban planners, GIS analysts, and the prosumer geospatial market. We expect municipalities, engineering firms, emergency response agencies, and utilities to be core customers.