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Microsoft maps future of automotive transformation with geo-location partnerships

Detroit3_300The connected car. It has virtually changed the business model for automakers and the driving experience for customers. The car has transformed from a mode of transportation to being an important part of consumers’ digital lives. And over the last several years, we have been partnering with industry leaders including BMW, Harman, IAV, Nissan, Qoros, Toyota, and Volvo Cars to bring this next-generation car to life.

The next chapter in our connected car story is the explosion of location-based services (LBS). It’s the future of where the industry is headed. LBS takes advantage of the growth of smartphones and tablets, and the advancements in cloud computing and analytics, to further extend the connected car experience. By tying people, vehicles and devices together with existing infrastructure, a whole new world of value-added opportunities is now available to automakers.

And Microsoft and our partners are at the forefront of this innovation.

Partnerships to connect our world

The latest milestone in this exciting journey is the work we are doing with partners Esri, HERE and TomTom to pioneer intelligent location-based services across Microsoft services and technologies.

Detroit6_300At our Microsoft Technology Center in Detroit, we recently announced that we are collaborating with TomTom to bring enterprise-grade location-based services to the Microsoft Azure platform, based on TomTom’s maps, traffic and navigation software to make it even easier for developers to build and manage enterprise, mobile, web and Internet of Things (IoT) applications that are location-aware.

We are expanding our long-standing work with HERE to integrate the company’s data and services into Microsoft’s Bing Maps platform that powers Bing.com, Cortana, and many other Microsoft services, as well as offering its Bing Maps API to developers, through the Azure Marketplace. And we will continue to build on our existing partnership with geographic information system (GIS) market leader Esri to leverage its powerful technology to help accelerate deep analysis of a range of data, images and maps from companies like HERE and TomTom.

Our work will center around graph technology, which connects our devices, and using the power of the cloud and IoT, allows them to communicate with each other. There is a massive, untapped opportunity in a concept we call the ‘world graph.’ This is where the relationship between our devices (whether that’s a phone or a sensor in your car), technology services, and location-based data will connect to make information more accessible so we can make everything around us smarter.

Detroit7_300Together with our partners, we will build the next world graph to enable an open, collaborative, location-based ecosystem in Microsoft Azure that automakers can use to customize their offerings at unprecedented levels. This could include things like optimizing route calculations based on time, traffic conditions, and weather. Or using cloud-based navigation systems for distributing real-time, contextual map updates. Or helping onboard car sensors interpret relationships between objects and patterns, such as “am I following the car in front of me too closely?”

Ultimately, these partnerships help us further our strategy of building mutual value with our customers. Our goal is to be a trusted technology partner to leading automakers, not a competitor, helping them extend innovation to enable new business processes and new customer experiences. Our strength is in our differentiated cloud platform services—Microsoft Azure, Cortana Intelligence Suite, Skype and Office 365— that bring data from these and other systems into one cohesive view to make cars smarter, more efficient, safer, and more helpful to drivers and passengers.

Detroit5_300Driving the future

The rate of innovation accelerates with every year, and with technologies like the world graph, so does our knowledge base of anything related to physical places in the world. The key to connecting it all will be location. The collective integration and understanding of global data is poised to help us not just ride, but drive, the innovation trajectory across industries. This will pave the way for things like improved industrial manufacturing processes, autonomous driving, management and vehicle tracking fleet management, emergency support and disaster management, smart cities, and much more.

This notion of the car becoming part of broader IoT ecosystem around smart infrastructures is a leading catalyst for industry transformation. Anywhere there is a ‘connected signal’ to the cloud means increased efficiencies, savings and smarter processes—enabling incredible services opportunities for automakers and making our everyday lives safer and more productive.

I was pleased to join Esri, HERE and TomTom in Detroit to talk about our collaborations together. I encourage you to read more here.

Twitter: @sanrav