I think live.com has a lot of great features that people are only starting to become aware of. And the Virtual Earth has far better mapping and a stronger Api than google maps.
James senior presents a nice discussion over here, after he had lunch with David Graham, the UK Product Manager for Microsoft's Search
http://blogs.technet.com/james/archive/2006/11/15/windows-live-search-new-kid-on-the-3d-block.aspx
Cheers
Ian