Microsoft
today announced that it has acquired Solair, a company that provides software
companies can use to work with all of their Internet-connected devices. The
software can run as a cloud service or on companies’ infrastructure. Solair
also offers a hardware gateway that companies can use on their premises to
interface between their devices and the cloud.
The
technology will become part of Microsoft’s expanding Azure IoT Suite, Microsoft Azure IoT partner director
Sam George wrote in a blog post.
“Solair’s
IoT customization and deployment solutions, built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud
platform, are engineered to help businesses in any industry utilize IoT to run
more efficiently and profitably,” George wrote.
“For
example, Solair has brought the power of IoT to the Rancilio Group’s full line
of espresso machines, allowing the Italian manufacturer to remotely monitor
machines, resulting in greater efficiency across the supply chain. Using the
power of cloud-based data and analytics, Solair has helped the Rancilio Group
reduce costs and increase revenue.”
The
acquisition comes as other big technology companies strive to build out their
own cloud services for the Internet of Things (IoT) devices — there’s Amazon
Web Services’ AWS IoT service,
as well as offerings from Oracle and Salesforce.
But IoT has not been an area where Microsoft has made many acquisitions.
“The
Solair team and I look forward to being a part of Microsoft and a very strong
Azure IoT team. It’s an opportunity that will allow us to bring the power of
IoT to new and unique customer scenarios,” Solair CEO Tom Davis wrote in a blog
post.
Solair
started in 2011 and was based outside the Italian city of Bologna.
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