If you work with the procurement officer within your agency who is responsible for buying Microsoft software, then this news will make that person very happy once you are ready to license Virtual Earth. One of the new additions to the Microsoft Volume Licensing program for 2008 is the introduction of the Virtual Earth SKUs to the Microsoft price list. All government customers can now easily add Virtual Earth to their existing Select and/or Enterprise Agreements (EAs) that are serviced through their Large Account Resellers. This means that you can call GTSI, SoftMart, CDW-G or any other official GSA Schedule holder for Microsoft software to license Virtual Earth.

Licensing the Virtual Earth Service
You’ll first need platform access which is available in two flavors: Professional Platform Access, which includes routing (driving directions), or Standard Platform Access if you do not need routing. Then you'll need to license transactions. If your Virtual Earth application will have known internal users who you can count and manage, a licensing option is available to give you convenient unlimited transactions for these known users. Alternatively, if Virtual Earth is used in a solution where you do not count and track individual users, you must license "buckets" of transactions.

While these subscription SKUs are monthly in nature, they are actually conterminous alongside the agreement they’re being added to.

If you have any questions, you can send a note to for assistance to the Virtual Earth for Public Sector team at:

Virtual Earth

Virtual Earth, Volume, Licensing, Microsoft, SKUs