Dutch mapping company TomTom has expanded its partnership with Microsoft, becoming a leading location provider for Microsoft Azure and Bing Maps, while selecting Azure as its preferred cloud provider.

The partnership extension will see TomTom provide its map data and services to Azure Maps, which helps enterprises and developers to create map-based software and Internet of Things solutions, among other things. This will enable businesses and developers to access data such as real-time parking meter rates, street-specific traffic, carbon footprint, noise pollution reduction, and more.

 “TomTom is proud of the relationship we’ve built with Microsoft to offer Microsoft Azure customers access to build location-aware applications and look forward to deepening that relationship as we extend our high-quality location technologies to an even larger audience base,” said Anders Truelsen, managing director for TomTom Enterprise. “We’re excited to be chosen as the location data provider to power mapping services across all of Microsoft, including Bing, Cortana, Windows and many other leading products and the innovations that will come forward in this continued relationship.”

The data provided could be used by those working in agriculture to track crops, livestock, and tractors in order to reach maximum productivity. Delivery businesses can use the data to find the best delivery routes and update customers on delivery status.

“This deep partnership with TomTom is very different from anything Microsoft has done in maps before,” said Tara Prakriya, partner group program manager of Azure Maps and connected vehicles at Microsoft. “TomTom hosting their services in the Azure cloud brings with it their graph of map data. Manufacturing maps in Azure reduces the latency to customer applications, ensuring we offer the freshest data through Azure Maps. Azure customers across industries end up winning when their geospatial data and analytics, TomTom data, and Azure Maps services are all running together in the same cloud.”