The Redmond giant announced the acquisition of Multimap, a British company specialized in online mapping and included in the top 100 most valuable technology firms in the UK. Although Microsoft is already in possession of a powerful mapping technology (integrated into Live Search) and has recently increased its potential customer base with the translation of Live Maps in Chinese, it is clear that this is not enough to grab the king's crown from Google.

The terms of the deal remain blurred, and so do the reasons for the acquisition. Considering that Microsoft invested a lot of money in R&D for their Live Maps service it is somehow odd that they bought Multimap now, when they could've done it long ago. One explanation could be the fact that the Redmond giant is after more targeted advertising and a stronger response to Google's threat. Another explanation is related to the customer base: the 1.4 million customers Multimap boasts with today are a pretty decent addition to the 7.1 million users Live Maps registered in October, according to Nielsen Online. The official statement that accompanies the transaction says that it "gives Microsoft a powerful new location and mapping technology to complement existing offerings such as Virtual Earth, Live Search, Windows Live services, MSN and the aQuantive advertising platform, with future integration potential for a range of other Microsoft products and platforms."

Multimap has been founded in 1996 and is currently the leading mapping Web site in Europe, with customers also in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S. The street-level maps, photographs and travel directions Multimap offers are also available on mobile phones and PDAs.

Multimap will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, as part of the Virtual Earth and Search teams in the Online Services Group.

By comparison, Nielsen Online reported that Google Maps had 71.5 million customers in October, while Google Earth had 22.7 million...