Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote yesterday at Convergence 2015 in Atlanta signalled a major move to make the Internet of Things an everyday part of doing digital business.
The Azure IoT Suite will take “advantage of all the relevant Azure capabilities to connect devices and other assets (i.e. “things”), capture the diverse and voluminous data they generate, integrate and orchestrate the flow of that data, and manage, analyze and present it as usable information to the people who need it to make better decisions as well as intelligently automate operations.”
Microsoft’s initial focus with this new solution seems to be on business infrastructure–supply management and remote monitoring for pre-emptive maintenance–rather than on using connected devices to improve the customer experience. This contrasts with the emphasis on interactive customer-facing devices, including wearables, announced by Adobe last week.
But it’s too early to predict how businesses will deploy the new tools. The suite will not be available for preview until later this year, although Azure Stream Analytics, part of the IoT toolkit, is currently in preview and will be available next month.
Nadella also confirmed speculation by analysts that the Windows 10 OS will be IoT-focused.
