San Francisco, Apr 19 (IANS): Microsoft has acquired San Diego-based software company Express Logic, that makes software for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, to accelerate IoT development for billions of devices at scale.

With this acquisition, Microsoft said late Thursday it will unlock access to billions of new connected endpoints, grow the number of devices that can seamlessly connect to its Azure Cloud and enable new intelligent capabilities.

"I am incredibly excited to share we have acquired Express Logic, a leader in real time operating systems (RTOS) for IoT and edge devices powered by micro-controller units (MCUs)," said Sam George, Director, Azure IoT at Microsoft.

Manufacturers building products across categories -- from low capacity sensors like light bulbs and temperature gauges to air conditioners, medical devices, and network appliances -- leverage the size, safety and security benefits of Express Logic solutions to achieve faster time to market.

"Even highly constrained devices (battery powered and having less than 64KB of flash memory) can use Express Logic solutions. Over 9 billion of these MCU-powered devices are built and deployed globally every year, many of which can benefit from Express Logic solutions," said Microsoft.

Microsoft is getting an established company with a proven product that can help it scale its Azure IoT business.

The acquisition is part of a $5 billion investment in IoT the company announced last April that includes a number of Azure pieces, such as Azure Sphere, Azure Digital Twins, Azure IoT Edge, Azure Maps and Azure IoT Central.