Microsoft Continues Focus on IoT, Announces Partnership With Samsung

While Microsoft hasn’t had much of an official presence at CES 2016, its fingerprints are all over the various Windows 10 devices on display at the convention, including the new ultrathin Galaxy TabPro 5 from Samsung.

On Thursday, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President for Windows Terry Myerson joined Samsung’s president, Won-Pyo Hong onstage to announce that the companies will be collaborating on Internet of Things projects.

“Windows 10 is the ideal platform for intelligent IoT devices,” Myerson wrote in a blog post published the same day. For developers, he said, the platform offers:

“Rich connectivity for device-to-device, sensor-to-device, and device-to-cloud, so developers can interact with the full range of devices and Things through Windows IoT device APIs, without needing expertise in the myriad of evolving underlying frameworks, transports, protocols, or IoT technologies.”

The once-vague idea that all our devices, tools and appliances will communicate with each other and the cloud is more and more taking on the contours of reality, as evidenced by the myriad of Internet-of-Things related stories coming out of CES.

Windows 10 IoT Core already works with IoT maker boards including Intel Minnowboard MAX, Raspberry Pi 2 and Qualcomm DragonBoard 410c, and a Pro version with additional update controls was released in December.

Microsoft is also cosponsoring an IoT app maker challenge with Hackster.io and Arduino. Three winners who most innovatively combine Arduino, Windows 10 and Windows Azure will receive free trips to Maker Faire. Idea submissions close January 15.