Google put a ton of money into acquiring mapping visuals themselves, as did apple. Microsoft simply licensed the hell out of it.
When Google was ready, they were able to sell their mapping solution. Microsoft, on the other hand, was short sighted and only copying Google.
Another example of Microsoft playing copycat to Google, and having it pay off poorly in the long term is bing411: Google launched goog411 to gather voice data, Microsoft spent a ton of money and copied and used their top tier voice recognition service. Google shut down goog411 not long after: it was never about offering a service.
Also, it's not just satellite imagery, but street view. I'm referring to the google strategy of selling the maps as a service, something that microsoft took a while to catch up on.
> involved with satellite imagery back in the 90’s
Yes, they partnered with the USGS to distribute already collected map imagery. They didn't, for example, purchase/build a whole fleet of imaging cars and planes like Google did.
Also, because google had their eyes on a different prize than microsoft, the licensing terms of the map imagery had language baked in around reselling.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_navigation_system
There was lots of cool stuff available, but that whole org was held back by, I assume, internal politics. It was so bad that Azure Maps, another Microsoft product, doesn’t even use Bing data (or at least didn’t when it was announced and last I checked). Very sad.