Rockwell Automation and Microsoft announced a five-year partnership expansion to develop integrated, market-ready solutions to help improve digital agility through cloud technology.

The companies have extensive backgrounds in industrial and IT market, respectively, allowing teams to work together to enable industrial organizations to save on infrastructure costs and increase productivity.

“Today, one thing we know for sure is that no business is 100% resilient,” said EVP of worldwide commercial business at Microsoft Judson Althoff, in a press release. “Those fortified with digital capabilities and assets are more resilient than others, and the cloud is how they will thrive.

“We are pleased to deepen our already strong, decade-long relationship with Rockwell Automation to help businesses simplify industrial transformation, accelerate business outcomes and innovate with agility.”

The partnership will allow Rockwell and Microsoft to work on delivering edge-to-cloud solutions through a singular, trusted data environment. Development teams will have the ability to digitally prototype, configure, and collaborate without the investment of expensive physical equipment.

 Through the collaboration, IT and OT teams will also be able to securely access and share data models across the organization in addition to the ecosystem partners as well.

So far, the companies have co-developed more than 20 use cases. 

Per the press release, organizations can access Rockwell Automation solutions now via the Microsoft Azure Marketplace with more solutions currently in development. The next phase of co-innovation solutions will be available to joint customers of Rockwell Automation and Microsoft customers in Q1 2021 at Automation Fair At Home.