Microsoft acquires Internet of Things platform Solair, will integrate the technology into Azure IoT Suite

Microsoft today announced that it has acquired Solair, a company that provides software companies can use to work with all of their Internet-connected devices. The software can run as a cloud service or on companies’ infrastructure. Solair also offers a hardware gateway that companies can use on their premises to interface between their devices and the cloud.

The technology will become part of Microsoft’s expanding Azure IoT Suite, Microsoft Azure IoT partner director Sam George wrote in a blog post.

“Solair’s IoT customization and deployment solutions, built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, are engineered to help businesses in any industry utilize IoT to run more efficiently and profitably,” George wrote. “For example, Solair has brought the power of IoT to the Rancilio Group’s full line of espresso machines, allowing the Italian manufacturer to remotely monitor machines, resulting in greater efficiency across the supply chain. Using the power of cloud-based data and analytics, Solair has helped the Rancilio Group reduce costs and increase revenue.”

The acquisition comes as other big technology companies strive to build out their own cloud services for the Internet of Things (IoT) devices — there’s Amazon Web Services’ AWS IoT service, as well as offerings from Oracle and Salesforce. But IoT has not been an area where Microsoft has made many acquisitions.

“The Solair team and I look forward to being a part of Microsoft and a very strong Azure IoT team. It’s an opportunity that will allow us to bring the power of IoT to new and unique customer scenarios,” Solair CEO Tom Davis wrote in a blog post.

Solair started in 2011 and was based outside the Italian city of Bologna.