News that Microsoft plans to retire its Azure IoT Central platform, used by many developers to create customized IoT (internet of things) frameworks for large-scale deployments, has been partially walked back by the tech giant, prompting confusion among IoT experts.
A system message issued earlier this month stated that the service would be retired as of March 2027, and that new applications couldn’t be created as of April 1, 2024, according to reporting from The Register. Microsoft subsequently walked this back, in a blog post authored by Kam VedBrat, general manager and head of product for Azure IoT. VedBrat wrote that the message was “not accurate and was presented in error,” but did not, The Register pointed out, clarify the future of the Azure IoT Central platform.
The announcement and its subsequent retraction were met with a certain amount of bafflement from experts familiar with Azure IoT, who said that the framework is a prominent part of the enterprise IoT world and is used by numerous large businesses with complex IoT needs.
“When I first saw the announcement, I was a bit surprised,” said Patrick Filikins, a research manager at IDC. “At IDC, we do benchmark the IoT platform providers and we always rank Microsoft quite high in our leader category, if you will, so to see them sunsetting or looking to offload a portion of IoT Central … surprise was my reaction.”
Azure IoT Central, Filikins noted, is particularly important to large-scale IoT deployments, allowing users to manage a wide range of different device types, from LPWAN (low-power wide area network) sensors that may only need to send a signal once a week to complex, demanding, remotely managed machinery. That suggests that the platform drives a great deal of value for Microsoft.
“The value of IoT, when you’re trying to make money from it, is scale,” Filkins said. “So you’re going to be targeting the large opportunities for sure.”
A potential shift away from Azure IoT Central, however, could signal a restructuring in the way Microsoft delivers IoT services, if the company is looking to center them more closely alongside other offerings like its Copilot generative AI assistants and Azure Arc management platform.
Such a move—to de-emphasize IoT Central as a stand-alone product—wouldn’t be out of line for the quickly changing IoT market, according to Gartner senior director analyst Scot Kim.
“When IoT Central was first launched [in 2018], IoT was a wide-open market, like the wild west,” he said. “Now here we are in 2024, and companies are learning what’s working and what’s not working.”
Google discontinued its IoT Core platform in favor of a partnership with a specialist platform provider, Kim said, and IBM sold off Watson IoT, as well. This may be a sign of consolidation in the market.
Microsoft, as of this writing, had not replied to requests for comment and clarification about its plans.