Microsoft Phasing Out ESP Simulation Platform?

Ian Lamont writes "Overlooked in last month's news about Microsoft laying off the entire Flight Simulator dev team is the news that Microsoft's ESP development team has been gutted as well, and the future of the platform is in doubt. ESP is oriented toward industrial use, and lets companies build 3D simulations for flight and other applications. Late last year Microsoft announced big plans to expand ESP to other verticals, such as real estate, city planning, and law enforcement. That looks increasingly unlikely. Even though Microsoft declined to comment on ESP's future, companies which invested in the product are angry, judging by some of the comments on an MSDN thread. As noted by one user, 'my company used it for a solution and invested time and money into getting it approved and purchased. Microsoft sure handed us a raw deal for taking a gamble on their platform.'"

Comments

X-Plane developers picking up MS customers

[Yuioup]

Reading the thread in MSDN I can see that customers are being urged to use X-Plane:

I am also interested in knowing how long ESP will be available because my company used it for a solution and invested time and money into getting it approved and purchased. Microsoft sure handed us a raw deal for taking a gamble on their platform. It sounds like X-Plane is the way to go from now on. This is the last time I gamble a product's success on Microsoft. Every gaming studio Microsoft touches seems to sink like the Bismarck. http://www.x-plane.com/ms_to_xp/ms_to_xp.html

The X-Plane site itself is offering deals for the abandoned ESP customers:

http://www.x-plane.com/ms_to_xp/ms_to_xp.html
http://www.x-plane.com/ms_to_xp/esp_to_xp.html
http://www.x-plane.com/order.html

I like the comment "X-Plane 9 (temporarily $39.00 to let in all the new MS users)."

I was part of the ACES team

[He Who Has No Name]

Flight Sim WAS ESP. When the team behind Flight Sim - and therefore Flight Sim itself - were canned, ESP was part and parcel of those cuts.

The fact that anybody thought ESP still existed as anything more that a couple of my former coworkers sitting at desk and tying up loose contract and licensing ends... well, that's only because Microsoft carefully obfuscated how much overlap ESP and FS had.

ESP is dead and has been since ACES closed on January 23rd, 2009.

Re:TLA's (Three Letter Abbreviations)

[He Who Has No Name]

In theory, ESP stood for "Enterprise Simulation Platform". Officially, it was just "ESP", because there was some rule against using acronyms as product names.

Before it was called ESP it was referred to as Montauk.

Flightgear

[LingNoi]

If you're looking for an alternative to Flight Simulator there is always FlightGear.

Re:ESP

[Elektroschock]

ESP means End Software Patents and is run by the FSF. Microsoft decided not to participate in it.