TomTom, HERE and Esri, the names involved in mapping technology, joined Microsoft at Microsoft Technology Center in Detroit and have announced a new partnership, so as to integrate location-based Services into Microsoft Azure, which makes it easier and more flexible for developers to build and manage the enterprise, mobile, Web, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications which are location aware.
Image Source: blogs.microsoft.com
The company in its official Website states,
“A global leader in navigation and mapping products, TomTom brings to Microsoft advanced location technologies — optimized for fast updates — and innovative maps and capabilities, including its High Definition Map and RoadDNA technology for autonomous driving.”
Pieter Gillegot-Vergauwen, Vice President of TomTom Product Management and Maps states,
“Through our partnership with Microsoft, we can bring all our map layers to the Microsoft Azure ecosystem and foster innovation that makes people’s lives better. We’re working actively to lead the way to a future of smart mobility, smarter cities and autonomous driving.”
Microsoft has also announced an extension of its collaboration with HERE, a longtime partner, which powers location data in several first-party services, which includes Bing, Cortana, Windows and Office. A global map and data Services provider, HERE, also powers the Bing Maps API, that enables store locator maps and asset tracking along with other location services for numerous businesses and developers. According to the new agreement, Microsoft will be able to expand the use of HERE data and Services into productivity scenarios in cars.
Ashish Pandya, Director of Corporate Strategy for HERE states,
“We are entering a new era of services around connected cars in terms of safety, in-car productivity and making journeys more efficient. We don’t think one single entity can do this by itself. It’s going to take a collaborative effort. We’re very pleased to expand the agreement we’ve had with Microsoft.”
With its market leadership in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, Esri is another longstanding partner of Microsoft, which made it possible for ArcGIS products to deeply integrate into several applications and services.
Heather Blatchford, Director of Gobal Alliances at Esri states,
“Esri’s ArcGIS platform is turbocharged by Azure, and it’s the power and scalability of the performance of the cloud that starts to make transacting billions of observations, tens of thousands of images and millions of maps a reality.”
Microsoft and its partner is all set to create the next “world graph” – a new data index of physical places, objects and devices as well as their interconnectivity.
Microsoft wants to enable global location-based services for customers, differentiated by an an open platform with large data sets along with natively integrated functionality for the developer as well as deep integration with other data graphs for new scenarios. Scenarios can include connected cars that combine up-to-date mapping, traffic, and weather data with a driver’s schedule, to-do lists, and preferences for personalized planning and routing.
Microsoft concludes saying,
“We look forward to growing our collaboration with Esri, HERE and TomTom to enable location-based services for digital transformation, and to partnering with automakers as they continue to bring connected cars to life.”