This headline is pernicious clickbait. Why not say &quot;Microsoft Invented a Google Earth precursor, but never took it seriously&quot;? Because that would not force you to click through to understand how they &quot;totally blew it.&quot;<p>Spoiler alert: They built TeraServer map service to demonstrate that their database product could handle a terabyte or more of data. They got tons of user interest, but didn&#x27;t use the information they got from searches or the user emails to iterate on their project. They could have developed a dominant mapping service (the author&#x27;s thesis, sort of), but they let the project languish.