C3 IoT Win Streak Continues with Microsoft Partnership 

In the wake of winning a major deal with 3M, C3 IoT – the IoT analytics company with hundreds of millions of sensors under management – has announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft intended to accelerate enterprise AI and IoT application development with Azure as a preferred cloud provider. Workloads will include predictive maintenance, dynamic inventory optimization, precision healthcare and CRM.

An early adopter of the C3 IoT-Microsoft combination: Shell.

Tom Siebel-led C3 IoT offers a platform-as-a-service built for rapid development of large-scale big data, AI and IoT applications. Customers include Con Edison, the U.S. Air Force and other armed services within the Department of Defense,, Engie, the French multinational nuclear energy electric utility, and Enel Distribuzione, with more than 30 million smart meters in Italy.

The C3 IoT-Microsoft partnership includes  creation of a “better together” (similar to Hillary Clinton’s “stronger together” 2016 campaign slogan) solution, comprising the C3 IoT Platform, a low-code, high-productivity PaaS for scaling AI and IoT across enterprises, integrated to operate on Azure. The companies will conduct co-marketing and co-selling strategies that rapidly scale distribution globally, as well as intensive training for dedicated teams to speed customers’ time to value.

“The partnership between Microsoft and C3 IoT is significant in that it allows us to optimize our existing investments in data infrastructure while accelerating time to value of AI-based applications that enable Shell to better serve our customers with even more agility and efficiency,” said Erik Betz, vice president, architecture, platforms and data, Shell.

The C3 IoT Platform is now available on Microsoft Azure and integrated with a set of Azure services, including Azure IoT Hub, Azure Machine Learning and big data and advanced analytics solutions.

“With this partnership, two market leaders are joining forces to drive digital transformation at the world’s leading organizations,” said Siebel, C3 IoT CEO. “Combining the market reach of Microsoft, the amazing power of Microsoft Azure, and the capability of the C3 IoT AI platform, we will dramatically accelerate the adoption of AI, IoT, and elastic cloud computing globally.”

Siebel formed C3 IoT in 2009, and many in his initial group of about 50 engineers worked together at Oracle and then at Siebel Systems, building it into a $2 billion CRM market leader before Oracle acquired it for $5.8 billion in 2006. That track record helped attract $200 million from individual and institutional investors.

Azure is engaged in a titanic struggle with Google and IBM to take market share from public cloud computing services leader Amazon Web Services, which KeyBanc analysts estimate had a 62 percent share in 2017, down from 68 percent the previous year. KeyBanc reported that Azure jumped from 16 percent in 2016 to 20 percent last year.

“AI is one of the most transformative technology paradigms of our time in its ability to empower companies, societies, and economies to achieve more,” said Judson Althoff, EVP, worldwide commercial business, Microsoft. “C3 IoT’s proven technology and strong customer relationships make them an ideal partner in helping drive forward AI-based solutions built on the intelligent cloud.”