Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson AB said today it’s integrating its Connected Vehicle Cloud with Microsoft Corp.’s Connected Vehicle Platform.

Ericsson’s Connected Vehicle Cloud is a kind of nerve center that connects more than 4 million vehicles in 180 countries worldwide, representing around 10% of the overall connected vehicle market. The service provides 24/7 operations and lifecycle management, telematics, infotainment and navigation, similar to what Microsoft’s platform also provides.

The company last year signed up its biggest customer to date, Volvo Cars. Volvo has committed to using Ericsson’s Connected Vehicle Cloud to deliver digital services to its cars for the next five years.

Ericsson said that by integrating its cloud with Microsoft’s Connected Vehicle Platform, it will enable vehicle makers to scale services such as fleet management and over-the-air updates faster and more cheaply.

“Together with Ericsson, we intend to simplify the development of connected vehicle services to help car makers focus on their customers’ needs and accelerate the delivery of unique, tailor-made driving experiences,” Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of business development at Microsoft, said in a statement.

Microsoft’s platform, formerly known as the “Connected Car Platform,” enables vehicles to connect to cloud services such as Azure and Office 365. It’s essentially a layer atop of Azure that enables car makers to deliver vehicle sensor telemetry to a cloud data lake. The platform is also intended to work with trucks, cranes, ships and drones, according to a Microsoft white paper.

Photo: Ericsson