The annual event for Microsoft partners from around the world includes three days of keynote presentations by Microsoft executives and industry experts, product- and service-specific sessions and opportunities for structured and unstructured networking with other Microsoft partners and Microsoft team members.

Day one featured keynotes from Microsoft executives Steve Ballmer, Allison Watson, Kevin Turner, Chris Capossela and Mike Sievert. The executives discussed techniques the company employed to make it easier and more profitable for partners to do business with them through new resources, tools and benefits, in an effort to expand partner skills, increase their opportunities, help them close more sales and service their customers.

Day two brought along keynotes from executives Allison Watson, Andy Lees, Steve Guggenheimer, Sanjay Parthasarathy and Tami Reller. They discussed how they helped make it easier and more profitable for partners to do business with them through new resources, tools and benefits, in an effort to expand partner skills, increase their opportunities, help them close more sales and service their customers.

Among the highlights so far include day one’s topics of winning in the marketplace, business productivity and opportunity with Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007, and the evolution into the software plus services model. Day two brought along topics of Dynamic IT through core infrastructure, platform opportunities with Microsoft Office and software plus services and business application opportunity with Dynamics.

The mini-application Mapplets make it possible for users to view and layer maps containing information such as real estate listings, jogging trails, events and photos. For example, users planning vacations may view and layer maps of hotel availability, regional weather forecasts, gas prices and other useful information directly in Google Maps. Once they have created their custom map, they can create their own personalized itinerary by saving the results, adding notes, and putting it on a map to share with family and friends. Users looking for a new home can not only search real estate listings, but they can also layer findings over transit maps and crime statistics to further refine searches.

The new tools can be found in the Google Maps Directory. The directory is accessed by clicking on the ”Add content” link in the ”My Maps” tab in Google Maps. Users simply click on the ”Add it to Maps” buttons within the directory to bookmark relevant content.

Over 100 Mapplets are currently featured in the Google Maps Directory:

• Hotel pricing and availability from Orbitz and Booking.com
• Live, local weather conditions and traffic cameras from WeatherBug
• Worldwide webcams from Webcams.travel
• Things to do and local events from Zvents
• Gas prices from GasBuddy.com

Google has also developed several Mapplets:

• Google Real Estate Search — Find rentals and homes for sale in the US; this Mapplet draws from listings in Google Base
• YouTube Videos — Watch recently uploaded YouTube videos from around the globe
• Photos from Panoramio — See photos of locations from Panoramio.com while you browse Google Maps

The tools are built using the Google Mapplets platform, which enables any developer to create mini map applications that overlay their content on Google Maps and showcase their services to millions of Google users. The new functionality is available for Google Maps users in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. It is available in the following languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian and Chinese (TW).

With the largest index of websites available on the World Wide Web and the industry’s most advanced search technology, Google Inc. delivers the fastest and easiest way to find relevant information on the Internet. Google’s technological innovations have earned the company numerous industry awards and citations, including two Webby Awards; two WIRED magazine Readers Raves Awards; Best Internet Innovation and Technical Excellence Award from PC Magazine; Best Search Engine on the Internet from Yahoo! Internet Life; Top Ten Best Cybertech from TIME magazine; and Editor’s Pick from CNET. A growing number of companies worldwide, including Yahoo! and its international properties, Sony Corporation and its global affiliates, AOL/Netscape, and Cisco Systems, rely on Google to power search on their websites. A privately held company based in Mountain View, Calif., Google’s investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and Sequoia Capital.

To learn more about authoring Mapplets, please visit: www.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/mapplets.

For more information about Google, please visit: www.google.com.