Microsoft Streets & Trips

I got the very latest version of Microsoft Streets & Trips yesterday and installed it. Everything went fine and it doesn't look too much different from S&T 2006; we just assume that everything is more up-to-date. There were no major updates; still no voice interaction.

I went to put the box on the shelf next to the others when I happened to notice the points of interest (and the number of them) listed on the box. I made the comparison. So I decided to use Google Documents & Spreadsheets to collaborate with my colleague and compare the difference between the versions. From the 2005 to 2007 versions, there are 88,998 fewer restaurants listed. I think that is significant in some way. It may just be more accurate (that would be significantly better), or it could just be that places have closed or no one's interested in listing themselves with whatever service Microsoft uses to get them into the program (which would be - you guessed it - significantly worse).

So here's a link to the spreadsheet (publicly viewable). At the time of writing we didn't have the data in for the 2006 version, but my colleague is probably looking for the box.

And yes, I realize that this post has a very limited audience.