Microsoft to invest $5 billion globally in IoT over 4 years

Tech giant Microsoft announced that the company will invest $5 billion in the Internet of Things (IoT) globally over the next four years to support continued research and innovation in IoT.

With Microsoft's IoT platform spanning cloud, operating system and devices, Microsoft is simplifying the IoT journey so any customer-regardless of size, technical expertise, budget, industry or other factors-can create trusted, connected solutions that improve business and customer experiences, as well as the daily lives of people all over the world.

This will support Microsoft's technology platform, as well as supporting programs thereby enabling continued research and development in key areas, including securing IoT, creating development tools and intelligent services for IoT and the edge, and investments to grow our partner ecosystem. Customers and partners can expect new products and services, offerings, resources and programs.

For the Indian market, the investment will ensure that Microsoft continues to meet all its customers' and partners' needs, both, now and in the future as they develop new and increasingly sophisticated IoT solutions. IoT is gathering momentum in India, and impacting daily lives: saving electricity, resources, predictive healthcare, automobile safety and more.

In the recent past, IoT is being increasingly used in a number of fields. Authorities across states have turned to IoT to monitor drinking water quality for its citizens. TechSpan Engineering has implemented a monitoring system built on the Azure IoT platform, using sensors provided by the Austrian firm s::can and their India Partner Aaxis Nano. Using the power of the Microsoft cloud, IoT and data, the solution taps into the robust scan sensors to provide measurements across 17 parameters - from Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chloride and Fluoride levels to temperature and colour.

The solution is currently being used for monitoring drinking water quality online by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (125 stations) and Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board (KUWSDB) in Hubli, Dharwad and Bijapur (3 stations). Furthermore, it is being deployed for online surface water quality monitoring by Central Pollution Control Board, New Delhi (44 stations) and Central Water Commission, New Delhi (3 stations); online industrial pollution monitoring (1500 stations); online sewage treatment and flow monitoring by Delhi Jal Board (36 stations).

Furthermore, Microsoft Azure IoT is powering India's first Smart Street Lighting Project for Jaipur, underscoring Microsoft's mission of transforming public spaces digitally. The Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) operates and maintains over 100,000 public street lights within the city. However, one of three in these lamps did not work and many others functioned poorly, leading to several areas of the city being in the dark.

Microsoft's partner Samudra LED has now deployed a customised Microsoft IoT-platform-based solution created by ISV Precimetrix to monitor, control and manage smart LED public street lights. The project will benefit 1.65 million people through improved street lighting and a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 36,750 metric tons/year. It will also result in USD 1 million per year in fiscal savings accrued to the government due to reduced energy consumption.

Researchers at IISc Bangalore are also using a network of IoT sensors coupled with Microsoft Azure analytics to find how cloud technologies can help tackle water scarcity in cities.

On the agriculture front, Microsoft FarmBeats, a research project for agriculture, enables seamless data collection from various sensors, cameras and drones. It comprises two broad areas, data-acquisition system consisting of drones and sensors and a data-analysis system consisting of connectivity pieces, cloud storage, and predictive analysis.

Earlier last year, Tata Motors announced that it will leverage Microsoft's connected vehicle technologies that bring together AI, advanced ML, and IoT capabilities on Microsoft's Azure cloud, to create a highly personalised, smart and safer driving experience across the digital life of a vehicle owner.

Furthermore, Tyre Express, a startup pioneering lifecycle management for fleet operators, has developed an IoT-based Tyre Performance Management Solution. Powered by the Azure IoT Hub, Tyre Express is helping build operational efficiency for commercial vehicle fleet operators by tracking tyre performance.

Talking about IoT in manufacturing, Tetra Pak is employing new, digital tools that enable its cloud-connected machines to predict exactly when equipment needs maintenance, averting many breakdowns. Sensors on more than 5,000 Tetra Pak filling machines at customers' sites globally, all connected to Microsoft Azure, feed real-time performance data to the company for monitoring and analysis - nearly 700 million data points each year.

IoT will lead to a USD 1.9 trillion productivity increase and USD 177 billion in reduced costs by 2020 (A.T. Kearney). This effect will be pervasive, from connected homes and cars to manufacturers to smart cities and utilities-and everything in between. Pre-empting this, Microsoft announced Microsoft IoT Central, the first highly scalable IoT SaaS solution, that has built-in support for IoT best practices and world class security along with the reliability, regional availability, and global scale of the Azure cloud.

Microsoft IoT Central allows companies to build production-grade IoT applications in hours and not worry about managing all the necessary backend infrastructure or hiring new skill sets to develop the solutions.

Microsoft's IoT offerings today include operating systems for devices, cloud services to control and secure them, advanced analytics to gain insights, and business applications to enable intelligent action. With each implementation, customers and partners are overcoming challenges of building an IoT solution that harnesses massive amounts of data.