Microsoft MapPoint 2002

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CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
Detailed editors' rating

Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 8 reviews
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Product summary

The good: Excellent integration with other Office XP apps; new tools create maps that display sales or service territories; updated demographic data includes 2000 census estimates.

The bad The bad: Expensive; requires 410MB minimum disk space; doesn't ship with Office XP.

The bottom line: This excellent but expensive map-based business data analyzer is a smart addition for any business running Office 2000 or XP--as long as you have the cash.

Specifications: License qty: 1 user; License type: Complete package; Min Operating system: Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 SP6, Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows 98; ; See full specs

CNET editors' review

Reviewed by: Gregg Keizer
Reviewed on: 05/29/2001
Updated on: 01/15/2003

Nearly every small or medium-sized business needs maps--maps to choose the route your salespeople take when they call on clients and maps to service areas for your distributors. And that's why, in theory, Microsoft MapPoint 2002 makes good sense for small businesses. It's packed with demographic data, tightly tied to other Microsoft applications, and easy enough for the cartographically challenged to use. But this business mapmaker and data analyzer isn't cheap; in fact, at $249, it costs more than Office XP's standard edition upgrade. MapPoint is the best business mapping application for workplaces running Office 2000 or Office XP, if you can stomach the price.Nearly every small or medium-sized business needs maps--maps to choose the route your salespeople take when they call on clients and maps to service areas for your distributors. And that's why, in theory, Microsoft MapPoint 2002 makes good sense for small businesses. It's packed with demographic data, tightly tied to other Microsoft applications, and easy enough for the cartographically challenged to use. But this business mapmaker and data analyzer isn't cheap; in fact, at $249, it costs more than Office XP's standard edition upgrade. MapPoint is the best business mapping application for workplaces running Office 2000 or Office XP, if you can stomach the price.

A little taste of Office XP
MapPoint's appearance ties in nicely with the rest of Microsoft's business apps, right down to the background shading that highlights toolbar icons. Once you've selected a map, it fills your monitor for easy viewing, and MapPoint's tools, such as the Find field at the top and drawing objects along the bottom of the screen, make it easy to look up a location, highlight routes, and launch the program's various wizards.

But MapPoint leaves out a few valuable XP features. For example, you can't customize the toolbars--something every other Office XP application allows. Worse, MapPoint skips Office XP's best new feature, its context-sensitive toolset panel, called the Task Pane.

Voracious disk eater
MapPoint creates and opens complex maps fast--three seconds or less on our 900MHz test PC--but it hogs disk space and CPU resources. Even if you access maps straight from MapPoint's data CD instead of your hard drive, you must set aside 410MB for the application alone. MapPoint chewed up so much processing power on our Windows 2000 Professional test machine, other open applications slowed to a crawl or--in rare instances--temporarily locked up.

Demographic demon
If you need software only to plot routes and plan trips, you're throwing away money on MapPoint. Sure, it scopes out efficient routes between cities and draws detailed maps, down to the street address level in the United States and Canada, so it's easy to plan business trips and sales routes. But this program's little brother, Streets & Trips, does that too for just $50, and so does free MapQuest, for that matter.

MapPoint's strongest suit is as a graphical planning and analytical tool for small to medium-sized businesses. MapPoint's new Territories feature, for instance, lets you select areas by a variety of data--from zip codes to census tracts--and display them according to corresponding sales regions or service areas. Drive-time zones are another handy addition. They display the approximate distance you can travel within a specified time frame from a central point, say your business locale--very useful for analyzing delivery routes.

This app includes a wealth of demographic data, including 2000 census estimates, so you can build maps that illustrate everything from income to education distribution. (The identically priced European edition includes similar local data.) Of course, you can create maps from your own data, either by drawing one from scratch or by using data from Excel or Access. Continue reading

User reviews

Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 8 reviews
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1.5 stars

15 out of 15 people found this review helpful

"No updates!"

on April 14, 2003

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1.0 stars

"Map Tags cannot be moved"

on March 1, 2003

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3.5 stars

"Good start, still in development"

on June 14, 2002

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Microsoft MapPoint 2002

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