Together with an ecosystem of partners, Microsoft's cloud
offers enterprise customers choice and options for using location
data to solve issues such as asset location
tracking, fleet management and traffic congestion.
REDMOND, Wash., Nov. 28, 2017 /CNW/ -- Microsoft Corp. is
launching Azure Location Based Services to offer enterprise
customers location capabilities. Azure Location Based Services are
integrated directly into Azure, enabling enterprise customers to
add Location Based Services to their existing Azure cloud solutions
with the assurance that it meets Azure's world-class standards of
privacy, compliance, scalability, management and simplicity. These
new location capabilities will provide cloud developers with
critical geographical data to power a multitude of use cases,
including Internet of Things (IoT) asset tracking, fleet
management, logistics, automotive, urban planning, retail and
more.
"As IoT continues to transform businesses by providing
breakthrough insights and capabilities for connected assets,
location is becoming an important aspect to consider," said
Sam George, director, Microsoft
Azure IoT. "For instance, a department of transportation can now
use Azure Location Based Services to analyze and improve traffic in
congested cities, freight companies can provide improved fleet
management and logistics, and all businesses can track the location
of assets and be notified when their location changes."
TomTom will supply location data on Azure Location Based
Services, providing Microsoft with advanced location and mapping
capabilities. Azure Location Based Services include a set of APIs
that provide mapping, search, routing, traffic and time zones that
will be available through Azure. Microsoft customers will benefit
from high-quality location data from TomTom's unique global
community and its global partner network, whose users continually
provide active and passive map and traffic data insights. Azure
Location Based Services customers will benefit from contributions
of hundreds of millions of connected devices worldwide.
"We chose to partner with Microsoft because it has expertise in
scaling globally with enterprise customers and shares a joint
vision with TomTom to make location a fundamental aspect of the
cloud," said Anders Truelsen,
managing director of BU Licensing at TomTom. "Mapmaking is in
TomTom's DNA. By building on top of Microsoft's cloud, we
believe this will make our data more accessible than ever and will
empower developers to use our APIs to light up mapping scenarios
for both consumer and commercial customers."
Several service providers in the mobility space have been
testing Azure Location Based Services in private preview. Cubic
Telecom, an Irish-based global telecommunications service provider
in the IoT and automotive sectors, has built a proof of concept
that uses the services to rank the effectiveness of the charging
station placements and suggest new charging locations based on
network hotspots using their aggregated (and anonymous)
connectivity data. Fathym, a U.S.-based IoT solutions company,
is using the services to help cities and government agencies
visualize road weather conditions on a map and optimize for other
routes if weather conditions are unsafe.
Esri, an enterprise mapping and geographic information system
(GIS) technology leader, also intends to join Azure Location Based
Services to provide business customers with a complete set of
location data management, digital mapping and geographic analytics,
provided through Esri's ArcGIS suite and developer APIs.
"We are excited to partner with Microsoft on its Azure Location
Based Services," said Christopher
Cappelli, vice president of Global Business Development and
Sales, Esri. "Microsoft and Esri have been strategic partners
with one another for more than 20 years and have joint customers
all over the world. Our joint customers have already benefitted
from incorporating their existing Esri ArcGIS systems using our
GeoEvent Server with Microsoft's Azure cloud and Azure IoT
solutions. Others interested in incorporating location
services into their apps and systems can also immediately take
advantage of our complete array of capabilities for mapping and
analytics."
With the addition of Azure Location Based Services to the
Microsoft Azure cloud platform, developers and enterprises can
seamlessly build location-aware solutions on Azure, leveraging the
same billing, account and Azure infrastructure as all other Azure
services. Currently in public preview, Azure Location Based
Services will launch in calendar year 2018 and will be available
globally in more than 30 languages.
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) is the leading platform and
productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and
its mission is to empower every person and every organization on
the planet to achieve more.
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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.