Live Search Maps Taiwan just made it's debut (as Live Pages).

This service is a joint effort between Microsoft Taiwan and Chunghwa Telecom, the largest telecommunication operator in Taiwan. This new service is created based on technologies from the following companies :

• Chunghwa Yellow Page, a subsidiary of Chunghwa Telecom, on their geocoding engine together with an abundant database of Business Listing and Point of Interest information. A total of 1 million entries are available for user to search within, which is the most complete among other local competitors.
• Kingway Technology, one of the top mapping players in Taiwan, on their road map images.
• Multimap, a Microsoft whole-owned subsidiary, on their mapping API to render road map from Kingway and aerial map from Virtual Earth.

In general, the Multimap API is leveraging much of the imagery from Virtual Earth to create a best of breed international API for users who like the Multimap map styles. For Multimap customers there is added incentive to (a) continue to use the Multimap APIs and (b) leverage the investment they've already made in the Multimap platform, but still extend functionality.

Additionally, there were a number of services provided as a part of this release, including:

• Local Search (Finding Business or Place)
• Maps (Road and Aerial)
• CHT powered web call for their premium subscribers
• Messenger Activity
• Messenger Tab

Pretty solid release for v1. More to come, I'm sure.

CP