Microsoft has just its biggest play yet to stay relevant in the growing Internet of Things (IoT) market, announcing a new highly customisable cloud-based service for its Azure platform.

The new Microsoft Azure IoT Suite is set to be launched in preview mode later this year. The offering is meant to help organizations easily integrate and manage all of their connected ‘things’, giving them access to tools for asset management, remote monitoring and predictive maintenance, among others. Feeding into all of this is Azure Stream Analytics, a service that gobbles up real-time data from connected devices and sensors. That service is set to be launched next month, either as a standalone product or part of the Azure IoT platform.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has talked about the company’s IoT ambitions before, and the plan seems to be to use Azure as the foundation for corporate IoT deployments. The company highlighted Rockwell Automation as one of its first customers using various Azure services to manage its IoT deployments.

In line with this, Microsoft also touted a special version of Windows 10 for IoT deployments. The company says it wants Windows to be single unifying operating system that controls everything from PCs and mobile devices to IoT gateways and robots. Tentatively called “Windows 10 IoT”, the OS can be run on a myriad of connected devices, delivering access to universal apps and driver models that work across any device, and could be used in the likes of “ATMs and industrial robotics,” the company said.

The combination of the Azure IoT platform and Windows 10 means that Microsoft has a solid foundation for IoT deployments. If the initiative is successful, Microsoft will be able to shift some of the focus away from the declining PC market, gloss over its struggling mobile strategy and point to strong growth in the IoT market, which analysts predict will grow through the roof in years to come.

The only problem for Microsoft is it can expect to face intense competition from its cloudy rivals. Amazon Web Services (AWS) already has a similar cloud-based offering that caters to IoT, and it’s arguably more flexible as customers can literally build their own platform. Meanwhile, Google launched an open innovation and research program last December to develop standards, security and systems that will be needed to support the IoT.

A number of startups are trying to take advantage of this trend as well – just last month, a new startup called TheThings.io emerged from stealth, proclaiming itself as the AWS for the Internet of Things.

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