Microsoft recently announced it was partnering with Qualcomm on a specialized chip for its flagship 2-in-1 Surface Pro X device and it seems the company extended its relationship with the mobile chipset maker, into development for IoT operating systems.
Reported last week by ZDNet, Microsoft and Qualcomm are partnering on Microsoft’s Azure Sphere Internet of Things (IoT) operating system.
The details of Microsoft and Qualcomm’s collaboration were announced in Barcelona, Spain at Qualcomm 5G Summit. During the Summit, Roanne Sones, a corporate VP at Microsoft explained that a new chip developed by Qualcomm and in conjunction with Microsoft’s oversight will “work end-to-end with Azure and will focus on bringing together connectivity and security for IoT devices.”
More specifically, this Azure Sphere chip comes preconfigured with hardware-level security while also being able to connect to Azure Sphere security cloud services out of the box, enabling developers to spend less time on in-acting security measures and more time on sensor, app, and data management.
In addition to the pre-configured settings, the Qualcomm LTE 9205 modem will be available in the Azure IoT SDK enabling more mobility options to developers.
Unfortunately, the LTE 9205 modem does not come 5G of WiFi 6 enabled but Qualcomm is expected to be releasing reference designs with these features enabled for Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) access points.
There were no dates attached to the announcement but developers should expect to see Microsoft showcase some of its reference models in upcoming conferences including its corporate developer one in Orlando next month.
