Alan Glennon at Geography 2.0 has a very interesting article up about Microsoft’s plans regarding their response to Google Earth. Among other things, he points to this posting in Microsoft’s job announcement pages, from back in October 2005:

Have you seen Google Earth? Good concept, bad implementation. We have started a whole new project that takes the Flight Simulation 3D engine, builds Virtual Earth scenarios on it and merges it with our daily easy to use Streets and Trips product. Together this becomes our brand new built-from‘¯Ω-the-ground-up Virtual Earth desktop product. We are looking for a PM to join this effort.

Alan also has some insightful ideas about how Google in turn might respond, and where Google Earth could improve. Might Google buy a gaming company? It’s worth reading the whole piece.