In what can be termed as a Christmas battle, Microsoft has beaten Google as the official maps partner for Santa and his reindeer.

Microsoft had sealed a collaboration with the Pentagon’s North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which analyzes the skies over Canada and the United States, for the holiday season.

“For more than 50 years, NORAD has helped children around the world track Santa during his Christmas journey, and this year Microsoft is partnering with NORAD to make following the big red sleigh easier than ever,” Microsoft statement said.

“The Santa Tracker tool is built on the Microsoft Windows Azure cloud computing platform and Bing Maps, and anxious kids can even track Kris Kringle on Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps.”

It is quite a good news for Microsoft, whose search engine Bing is not able to compete against thee Google juggernaut. Interestingly, Google had been the tracking partner of NORAD since 2007.

“It’s a pretty big win for Microsoft and should give its products greater exposure, though I’m kind of sad that NORAD Tracks Santa is now developing into a service that corporations are clearly fighting over to sponsor,” pointed out Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land, a blog which follows both Google and Microsoft.

However, everything is not lost for Google this Christmas. It has an Android app on its Google Play store which gives mobile users an opportunity to follow Santa.