As a developer of emergency services mission critical applications, one of the most important points to our customers regarding MapPoint is the frequency of updates to the underlying mapbase especially as there appears to be no way to update (or to easily supplement the map data for long term road closures, new roads, etc) the underlaying maps.

Given that MS say that the maps are currently less then 1 year out of date (see previous MS replies), what will be the frequency of updates and costs (or will we have to wait for each new release of MapPoint and effectively re-purchase the product) ?

Or will the "updates" be available from alternative sources ?

There is currently no method for updating the base map data other than as part of a regular product update. MapPoint uses a proprietary and heavily compressed file format, and customers or third parties do not have edit or update access. Microsoft is planning for frequent data updates for its next generation mapping technology, but as far as we know this will not result in updates to the MapPoint base maps during the current MapPoint 2002 product life cycle.