Microsoft Announces Azure IoT Suite Customers and Partners in Taiwan

Software developer Microsoft of the U.S. launched its Azure IoT Suite and set up the Azure IoT Solutions Open Lab in Taiwan recently, having also recently announced its Azure IoT Suite customers and partners on the island.

The said local customers and partners include: Wistron Corp. (a major electronics manufacturing services provider), BenQ Corp. (computer peripheral vendor), Advantech Co., Ltd. (recognized as the No. 1 industrial computer maker in Taiwan), BungBungame Inc. (apps developer), Metalligence Technology Corporation (IoT solutions utilizing), Taiwan Secom Co., Ltd. (security service provider), and Mooredoll Inc. (a firm specializing in creative tech and products that introduced the Mooredoll early 2015 enabling via cloud interaction between parent and child).

According to Microsoft, the Azure IoT Suite is an integrated offering that takes advantage of all the relevant Azure capabilities to connect devices and other assets or "things", capture the diverse and voluminous data they generate, integrate and orchestrate the flow of that data, and manage, analyze and present it as usable information to the people who need it to make better decisions as well as intelligently automate operations. The offering, while customizable to fit the unique needs of organizations, will also provide finished applications to speed deployment of typical applications across many industries, such as remote monitoring, asset management and predictive maintenance, while providing the ability to grow and scale solutions to millions of "things."

To accelerate the development of Internet of Things (IoT) market in Greater China, Ralph Haupter, CEO of Microsoft Greater China, designated Roan Kang, incumbent General Manager, Marketing and Operating Organization, Microsoft Taiwan, to be in charge of Microsoft's IoT business promotion in the region.

Kang says that Taiwan's industrial environment is very suitable for the construction of IoT, due especially to the wide prevalence of front-end devices and considerable maturity of sensing technologies on the island.

Wistron used to be a system assembler but has now ventured into IoT-related businesses. The firm is working with Microsoft in the operation of the Azure IoT solutions Open Lab in Taiwan, providing support to partners in IoT service settings and infrastructure, as well as application development, cloud-end deployment and platform operation and management.

In its IoT business, BenQ targets six major fields, including smart shop, smart manufacturing, smart medical, smart education, smart enterprise and smart energy, supplying 30 total solutions across 10 categories of hardware equipment.

Advantec says it started as an industrial-computer maker, but has been aggressively building its capability in sensing technologies. By adopting Microsoft's Azure IoT Suite, the industrial-PC maker says it has moved one step further toward intelligent computing services, being focused on smart vehicle parking, clinical-service cloud etc. segments.

By utilizing the Azure IoT Suite, Taiwan Secom has upgraded its traditional security services, which typically involves dispatching guards to a scene upon detecting alarm, to interactive mode that could involve communication between customer and Secom during intrusion, and related services as smart home, smart crisis prevention, smart homecare, smart energy saving, smart home security etc., all of which involve some degree of remote-sensing, remote-control by customer or owner, and dispensing of advice remotely by medical experts.

Other partners of Microsoft Taiwan using the suite are focusing on smart agriculture, development of smart and interactive dolls, mobile thermometer, etc.