Microsoft bought his first Italian startup: is the Bologna Solair – The Messenger

A young company in Bologna who created innovative technological solutions in the field of cloud computing and in the Internet of Things (IoT), became the first acquisition of Microsoft in Italy. Solair is called and is a startup founded in 2011 in Casalecchio of Reno by a team of young “talented” who claim to be able to equip a company of “turnkey solutions” the Internet of things and cloud computing in just two weeks . It must be true because Gartner analysts place it among the top 16 global companies in the sector. “Solair is a piece of the puzzle we were missing, we buy a brick for it to become a pillar of what we do and we will do at the global level for the Internet of things,” he told ANSA Carlo Purassanta CEO of Microsoft Italy, manifesting also satisfaction, “because it is an Italian excellence” that comes from the creativity and ingenuity of young Italians. In Italy the market of the Internet of Things, closely related to the ‘Internet cloud, grew in 2015 by 30% over the previous year and is considered driving the entire ICT sector.

Two billion euro is its equivalent, and today there are already 10 million related objects. “It’s an emerging market but great development – detects Purassanta -, that of the digitization of business processes, especially in the manufacturing but also in transport, nell’enogastronomico and retail. It goes to take advantage of the proliferation of sensors in objects and industrial machines which monitor production lines, accumulating data and to make decisions or make predictions on the final outcome. We are the third largest country in the world manufacturing and this promises – he said – to be a wave overwhelming. Italy, like Japan and Germany, is a very fertile ground. ” Solair, which in Japan is exploiting the potential of the IoT to transform the way in which the factories are monitoring the production lines, according to Microsoft has created the best software in its class, and why the Redmond company decided to buy it, after about four years of collaborations and small projects together.

“Microsoft Corporate, always interested in finding promising companies – explains Purassanta – saw that the Solair boys had developed what a small piece of the puzzle we were missing, and he decided to buy it in order to develop this brick and turn it into a pillar of our global strategy of the Internet of Things “and an important part to build an intelligent cloud for businesses. Solair was the first but could not rhyme long the only Italian acquisition: “The CEO Nadella when he came to Italy last November – said the CEO of Microsoft Italy – told me in a year I go back and I want you to me these emerging realities that operate in the vertical but may be used in the global market. “