The deal will provide developers to access both sets of tools as part of a single platform and will go live later this year when Azure IoT Suite moves from Beta to General Availability (GA). This is the third major deal with a software company for Jasper after they announced deals with Salesforce and SAP.
According to the press release the deal will provide enterprises with three key advantages:
- Faster Time-to-Market – Enterprises in any industry can accelerate time to market of their IoT services by taking advantage of pre-established, deep integration across all technology layers – connectivity, application, and data.
- Global Visibility – Businesses gain a global view of their IoT deployments – including both device data and Control Center IoT service data – through the Azure IoT Suite experience.
- Automated Business Decisions – The solution delivers richer insights that inform more sophisticated decision-making.
What is interesting about this deal is the way that it is structured. At first glance it would be easy to see this as the start of an acquisition process by Microsoft who need Jasper more than Jasper needs them. However, Simon Berman, VP Product Marketing at Jasper was keen to dispel this view saying:
“From a business perspective there will be no joint sales or reselling of products. We will continue to sell Jasper Control Center through our channel and Microsoft will sell Azure IoT Suite through theirs. What this deal means is that enterprise customers with access to both products can now work with them in one environment.”
Jasper already has an established Internet of Things customer base
With more than 2,000 enterprises in over 20 different industries and markets, Jasper is bringing a lot of companies to the table. Many of those companies are also Microsoft customers who will see this as a bonus for them. The existing deals with Salesforce and SAP provide choice for customers as to who they partner with and potentially how they mix products and data from three of the largest players in the market.
What will be interesting is how this evolves in terms of third-party products. Berman said: “This is a fledgling market and we could see apps sold through the Azure marketplace. There is nothing to stop any customer building pre-packaged solutions that are sold off the shelf to people who would then be able to use the apps to consume data from a wide range of devices.”
Conclusion
There is no doubt that Microsoft is getting a good deal here. While there is a large overlap between the customer bases of the two companies, Jasper is bringing an established IoT ecosystem to the table while Microsoft is still in beta with it Azure IoT Suite. This deal with Microsoft also creates a partnership that should quickly become a dominant player in the IoT market putting pressure on the likes of IBM.
All eyes will now be on Microsoft. The first thing everyone will be looking for is how long will it be before Azure IoT Suite goes GA. The second will be how long it takes Microsoft to build up a selection of third-party products that are available through the Azure marketplace.
