Microsoft is joining the connected car craze, but it's not building its own connected car, instead, Microsoft is bringing its a new Azure-based cloud platform along with the Cortana to the automakers that want to use the company's cloud platform to power their own connected-car services.

According to TechCrunch, Microsoft is bringing a new Azure-based cloud platform along with its AI tech Microsoft Cortana to the car manufacturers that want to harness the power of the cloud for their own connected car services.

Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform Offers A Whole New Platform.

At CES 2017 event, Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform, a framework built on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform that designed to bring multiple technologies to auto manufacturers to create custom connected driving experience.

With Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform, Car manufacturers will now able to take advantage of Bing for search, Microsoft Dynamics, Office 365, Power BI and Skype for real-time communications. In addition to the various business applications, the automaker will now able to integrate In-car infotainment systems with Microsoft Cortana for immersive conversational user experience.

Microsoft is not building a car operating system here, but rather provides the tools and algorithms automakers needs to build the technology needed to power they're own connected-car services.

The software company will be launching a cloud-based platform will allow automakers to address key areas such as improved in-car productivity, advanced navigation, customer insights, predictive maintenance and building autonomous driving capabilities, leveraging the company's vast computing cloud resources to process huge volumes of sensor and usage data from connected vehicles. And then providing that meaningful data to the car manufacturers in a more effective way.

As stated in Microsoft's blog post, Microsoft Azure Cloud platform will do the heavy lifting by crunching the huge volumes of sensor and usage data collected from connected vehicles, and then helping automakers apply that data in a more effective ways.

Microsoft Teamed Up With Major Automakers

German auto giant BMW and Renault-Nissan Alliance were some of the latest companies to sign up to Microsoft's Connected Vehicle Platform. The automakers made the huge announcement at the recent CES 2017 event in Las Vegas.

The huge partnership means that the voice-controlled technology that being offered by Microsoft Cortana on home PC or smartphone will now be made available on BMW and Nissan vehicles. Microsoft will be powering both Nissan and BMW connected vehicles with advanced navigation, predictive maintenance, remote monitoring, in-car entertainment and more.

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has mentioned in his 2017 CES keynote that it is continuing its partnership with Microsoft to build the next breed of connected car technologies. The two companies have been doing connected car business since 2015, according to Forbes.