Microsoft launches StreetView rival in Europe
Microsoft is taking pictures in conjunction with mapping partner Navteq — Microsoft is launching its own version of Google's StreetView - dubbed Streetside - across Europe. — Cars fitted with cameras have begun taking pictures around London …
Context & Ripple Effects
Street-level imagery in Europe has effectively been a Google monopoly since its Street View car was first sighted in London in September 2007; every rival consumer map has shipped with a blank spot where the photo layer would be. Microsoft's answer arrives via Streetside, launched across Europe with camera cars already shooting London.
The launch leans on assets Microsoft has been assembling rather than starting fresh: it photographs in conjunction with confirmed mapping partner Navteq, and extends the imagery work behind Photosynth's integration into Virtual Earth in 2009. With no other outlet picking the story up and little public reaction yet recorded, the significance sits in the strategic fact itself — Bing Maps now has a path to parity on the one layer Google owned outright.
First-order effects
- Google's StreetView loses its sole-provider status in Europe immediately: Microsoft's Navteq-equipped camera fleet is capturing the same streets, giving Bing Maps a competing photographic layer for the first time.
- Navteq moves from selling base map data to co-producing a flagship consumer imagery product, deepening its role inside Microsoft's mapping stack.
Second-order effects
- Google faces pressure to defend its European imagery lead — either accelerating capture or differentiating StreetView beyond raw photos — while European consumers gain a second source for street-level views.
- Other map makers without an imaging fleet now face a higher bar: street-level photography shifts from novelty to expected feature, forcing licensors like Navteq's customers to decide whether to license imagery or build fleets.
Third-order effects
- If both players sustain it, street-level imagery becomes standing infrastructure — continuous re-capture fleets operating across Europe — raising the capital floor for any company wanting to compete in consumer mapping.
- Widespread camera cars on public streets point toward the privacy-regulation questions that follow any mass photography program becoming a structural cost of the mapping business, though how regulators respond remains open.
The trend: Consumer mapping is shifting from routing grids to photographic ground truth, and Microsoft's Streetside push marks the moment Google's street-imagery monopoly in Europe gets its first serious challenger.