Microsoft’s MapCruncher Graduates From Microsoft Research but Does It Really?

Microsoft Virtual Earth – MapCruncher has its own webpage and a commercial license so commercial users can now use the product. You can download the MapCruncher beta here.

What is weird is that I’ve got both the MSR MapCruncher and the new Virtual Earth MapCruncher installed now and they both seem to be the same version (called MapCruncher Beta for Virtual Earth) but they have different version numbers: For the “new” Microsoft Virtual Earth -MapCruncher this is the about dialog:

The “older” MSR MapCruncher that I didn’t uninstall has the same interface with the same program title as the one above, but a different about dialog:

I’m sure Microsoft will get more into the difference and what this means for the MSR MapCruncher vs the new Virtual Earth MapCruncher but from the user perspective it is confusing. I get the commercial vs. research licensing, but is that it and why do you need two versions?