I've developed an application that uses the mappoint control, I now need to roll this application out to 40 users. The problem I have is that although the program uses the mappoint control it uses it in such a way that the mappoint window is never actually opened, all it does is calculate distances etc.. and write them to the form in the program. I don't really want to have to buy 40 mappoint licenses when this is all it does, I have no other need for these users to use mappoint in full.

My question is, is there such a thing as a runtime library for mappoint or something else I can do without having to do a full install of mappoint on each machine (and buy 40 licenses)?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Are you calculating driving distance? If not and only need stright line distance or 'as the crow flies', you could get by without mappoint.

Here is a link that would be helpful if you do not need driving distance, just in case.

http://williams.best.vwh.net/avform.htm

There use to be a runtime version of mappoint but I never really looked into it, I do not remember it being that much cheeper???

Unfortunatly i'm using driving distance, I also need the program to return the names of the pushpins that it is calculating the distance to and from (although this could possibly be done another way) I have since investigated this and it would appear there is a runtime version but i'm not sure of the price yet.

If I run the program as a client/server app on my network and all the mappoint work is done on the server would I still need licenses for the clients.

You really need to call Microsoft on this one. My guess is using MapPoint 2004 the "desktop version" you will need 40 lic. The other choice is MapPoint.Net web service.

A few month ago I was almost "fighting" for getting the runtime-version-licences of Microsoft.

I integrated Mappoint in an application of mine and after many email-contacts I "won" .

Here are the article-numbers of the runtime-versions of Mappoint 2004 Europe (Microsoft Austria!):
SKU #: B2100509 (german)
SKU #: B2100506 (english)

The costs are about the half of the normal price, you get just 10 licenses at once.
You have to participate at "PIP" (product integration program at Microsoft, that means to sign a contract - with no cost - just work).


An adress at Microsoft in US is : maplic@microsoft.com (I got by chance somewhere). I got a good answer from them.

Hope this helps.
Bernhard