Windows Azure Goes the IoT Route

Windows Azure, a platform created by Microsoft that's best known for providing companies with much-needed cloud-computing platforms, has decided to lift scaffolds and build on top of its reputation to touch the hearts of companies making use of the Internet of Things (IoT). The new service, known as Microsoft Azure Intelligent Systems Service, will let users manage the data generated by their sensors and devices. It's a machine to machine (M2M) version of what Azure already offers.

With this new platform, businesses will have the capability to leverage some of Azure's most powerful tools, such as a big data analysis platform, the Hadoop service and a variety of business intelligence platforms. All of this will fit in neatly into any M2M user's business model.

According to Microsoft, its product "provides agents and open-source agent software to support heterogeneous operating systems and protocols across LoB (line of business) assets, alleviating barriers from custom solutions that take many months to implement and may have limitations supporting diverse environments. The result is a more comprehensive and much faster solution to deliver, accelerating adoption and deployment to yield enterprise value. A unified approach to security distinguishes the solution with enterprise-grade security developed and supported by Microsoft."

In short, Microsoft's IoT offering should be relatively easy to implement when compared to other solutions for M2M transparency and oversight. Having a cloud-based platform where users can manage all of the data from their sensors is still a relatively underserved market, although it's about time that changed.

Over time, the barometer might grow and pressure will be placed on Microsoft to compete more aggressively against up-and-coming players in the B2B IoT cloud market, but we're currently not seeing that. When it happens, though, it will be rather interesting to see what innovations Microsoft can use to parry off its competition effectively.