Microsoft chooses TomTom as location data provider for Azure mapping

Microsoft has chosen TomTom as the location provider for its Azure mapping services. The partnership aims to help enterprises create IoT, mobility, logistics and tracking solutions. 

TomTom has also chosen Azure as its preferred cloud provider and its services will enable enterprise customers to get more from the cloud. Agricultural customers, for example, can track the use of farm sensors for crops, livestock and tractors to optimise production. According to a Microsoft press release, using the Azure Maps services powered by TomTom allows for more informed distribution of goods. 

“TomTom is proud of the relationship we’ve built with Microsoft to offer Microsoft Azure customers access to build location-aware applications and look forward to deepening that relationship as we extend our high-quality location technologies to an even larger audience base,” said Anders Truelsen, managing director of TomTom Enterprise. “We’re excited to be chosen as the location data provider to power mapping services across all of Microsoft, including Bing, Cortana, Windows and many other leading products and the innovations that will come forward in this continued relationship.”

In addition, TomTom’s location and traffic data and Azure Maps services will help improve smart city applications. The combination makes it simple to provide a data sets from a variety of sources, such as real-time parking meter rates, street-specific traffic and reducing noise pollution. 

“This deep partnership with TomTom is very different from anything Microsoft has done in maps before,” said Tara Prakriya, partner group program manager of Azure Maps and Connected Vehicles at Microsoft. “TomTom hosting their services in the Azure cloud brings with it their graph of map data. Manufacturing maps in Azure reduces the latency to customer applications, ensuring we offer the freshest data through Azure Maps. Azure customers across industries end up winning when their geospatial data and analytics, TomTom data, and Azure Maps services are all running together in the same cloud.”