Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is willing to strengthen its IoT offerings and have announced to invest $5 billion in IoT over the next four years, globally. The software giant has planned to spend the amount primarily on research and innovation in IoT which could lead the company to stay ahead of the tech curve. Microsoft’s IoT Investment is being seen as a massive push by the company to empower their customers – irrespective of their size, expertise and budget – to offer more connected solutions that have the potential of improving people’s life besides business and customer experience.
The move will help Microsoft to have a better partner ecosystem, create more IoT tools and intelligence services and improvise IoT security. Eventually, all this will result in the strengthened market presence and deeply penetrated market with new future-ready tools.
Microsoft IoT Investment: A $1.9 Trillion Opportunity
The announcement to invest $5 billion in IoT will allow Microsoft to capture a sizable share of estimated $1.9 trillion IoT market globally by 2020. The increasing adoption of IoT enabled products and services are portraying a big window of opportunity for all IoT players. From IoT enabled water purifier to Smart Lightning to Connected cars, the industry is going through a major shift; hence, the early moving advantage will pay off in a long run.
IoT In India: $15 Billion Market by 2020
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The exploded adoption of smartphones has created a gateway for all the IoT players, who are overwhelmed by the response received by the market. According to the Deloitte report, the IoT market in India is expected to be as big as US$9 billion by 2020.
Interestingly, Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) (APeJ) will be the IoT spending leader, with spending expected to reach $455 billion by 2021.
From startups to established organisations Microsoft has been working with almost all types of players in India who have shown a great degree of interest and commitment in IoT. To provide highly personalised, safe and smart driving experience Microsoft is working with Tata Motors and allowing the company to leverage on its connected vehicle technologies.
To improve and provide a healthy lifestyle TechSpan Engineering, a Bangalore based startup, is trusting Microsoft’s Azure platform. The startup is committed to monitoring the drinking water quality in real time by using collected data, the sensors provided by Austrian firm and underlying cloud infrastructure from Microsoft.
On the other hand, Microsoft is yet to provide more clarity on the precise nature of its announced spending. Last year Microsoft spend $13 billion on R&D, albeit not on IoT alone. However, considering Microsoft Azure Suite already have a strong foothold in the market, it would be interesting to see which areas of IoT Microsoft have planned to invest in. Analysts believe that Microsoft may spend a sizable amount of the $5 billion to M&A.
