Azure Review: Mapping data; Partner expansion; India cloud goals; IoT in healthcare; Data warehouse tools

As February got underway, Microsoft and its partners have focused on IoT, location services, preparing and migrating customers.

Amsterdam-based location-based services provider, TomTom, is expanding its partnership with Microsoft providing location data for Bing Maps and the secured location apps used by Azure Maps. During the Microsoft Ignite Government event, Unisys announced the launch of CloudForte for Microsoft Azure. The new managed service lets users automatically deploy cloud environments, in a bid to expand the availability of cloud-services.

In conjunction with their preexisting joint venture, Avanade, Accenture and Microsoft announced the creation of Accenture Microsoft Business Group. Expanding on Avanade and Accenture's existing Microsoft partnership, the two companies indicated that the new group would bring together 45,000 professionals to form the largest group of Microsoft solution experts in the world, led by Accenture veteran Emma McGuigan. The group is intended to help customers migrate to Azure, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365.