Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI) recently announced it was named Global Sustainability Changemaker and U.S. IoT Partner of the Year as part of Microsoft's annual awards recognition honors.
The Microsoft Partner of the Year awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered outstanding Microsoft-based applications, services and devices during the past year. Awards were classified in various categories, with honorees chosen from a set of more than 3,900 submitted nominations from more than 100 countries worldwide.
According to a press release, the Global Sustainability Changemaker award was given for the significant societal impact Johnson Controls OpenBlue Enterprise Manager is having on boosting sustainability in buildings, improving ESG scores and enabling data-driven decision-making by customers.
For its part, the IoT Partner award recognizes Johnson Controls for its OpenBlue platform which collects and primes data from IoT-connected devices inside buildings including HVAC, security and fire controls. The platform then uses machine learning, at the edge and in the cloud, to deliver insights enabling building owners and operators to drive exceptional efficiency, occupant comfort and safety outcomes.
"Buildings account for almost 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, representing a major opportunity to drive greater sustainability and have a positive impact on climate change," said George Oliver, chairman and CEO of Johnson Controls. "With our unmatched, comprehensive suite of solutions that solve unique challenges, we are honored to be recognized as Microsoft's 2022 Sustainability Changemaker for our leading OpenBlue digital platform. It is a powerful tool in enabling our customers' transition to a sustainable, lower-carbon world, and reinforces our position as the leading digital solutions provider in the industry."
Commenting on the IoT award Vijay Sankaran, Johnson Controls vice president and chief technology officer added: "Optimizing a building's systems requires the retrieval of quality data from a number of different sources – analog, digital and physical – often in real time, which can require a comprehensive IoT deployment. Microsoft has recognized our work in this field as much of the data being harvested by the IoT systems we're deploying for customers is channeled into AI engines running on Microsoft Azure."
In addition to being named Sustainability Changemaker and U.S. IoT Partner of the Year in 2022, Johnson Controls was also named a finalist in two additional Microsoft Partner of the Year categories – U.S. Education and global Independent Software Vendor (ISV), Business Excellence.
"I am honored to announce the winners and finalists of the 2022 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards," said Nick Parker, corporate vice president of Global Partner Solutions at Microsoft. "These partners were outstanding among the exceptional pool of nominees, and I'm continuously impressed by their innovative use of Microsoft Cloud technologies and the impact for their customers."
The Microsoft Partner of the Year awards are announced annually prior to the company's global partner conference, Microsoft Inspire, which will take place from July 19-20, 2022.
