The two companies will align technology and expertise to provide a robust solution for industrial IoT and digital product lifecycle management. At the center of the solution are Microsoft Azure IoT and the ThingWorx industrial innovation platform, which together enable customers to innovate products and operations. They provide IoT connectivity, rich contextualization, business system orchestration and novel user interaction through mixed reality. PTC's full portfolio of solutions, including Creo and Windchill for design, manufacturing and service, and Microsoft HoloLens VR glasses for mixed reality, round out these services.

At the heart of the collaboration is the decision to use Microsoft Azure as the preferred cloud platform for its manufacturing customers. PTC will also offer ThingWorx as a managed service deployed on Azure. Azure services, including Azure IoT Hub, will also be used. Customers can benefit from the advantages of Azure, including speed, security, scalability and global reach. ThingWorx, combined with Microsoft Azure IoT, accelerates the deployment of production-ready solutions and their iteration and refinement, provides access to a wide range of engineering data and ensures flexibility.

In the operational environment, PTC and Microsoft will also pursue joint business opportunities with customers in industries such as discrete manufacturing, process and hybrid manufacturing, oil and gas and utilities. A typical recent customer win is Colfax. The company provides gas and fluid power and manufacturing engineering products and services to customers around the world. The company will use PTC ThingWorx and Microsoft Azure to implement its enterprise-wide IIoT initiatives. "The collaboration between these two industry leaders makes perfect sense," said Ryan Cahalane, VP Digital Growth at Colfax. "With ThingWorx and Azure, Colfax will be able to harness the power of the Internet of Things to rapidly grow and scale operationally."

"This collaboration combines Microsoft's expertise in the intelligent cloud with PTC's leadership in IoT, product design, manufacturing and service," said Jim Heppelmann, President and CEO of PTC. "This is exactly the combination customers need to realize the value of digital transformation."

"We are pleased that PTC has chosen Azure as its preferred cloud platform to accelerate digital transformation on the Internet, especially for the manufacturing industry," said Jason Zander, CVP of Microsoft Azure. "By combining the PTC platform with the speed, scalability and intelligence of Azure, customers can accelerate their industrial innovation." kp