Sydney, Mar 2 (IANS): Microsoft has cancelled its 'IoT in Action' conference in Melbourne owing to the new Coronavirus outbreak.

Several customers and partners withdrew from the event that began its journey in 2017 from San Jose.

"After close consultation with our partners and community, we've made the difficult decision to cancel the IoT in Action Melbourne event this March 5, 2020," Microsoft told attendees in an email.

The event was aimed at building new IoT experiences and rapid innovation via the intelligent edge, reports ARN.

Australia on Monday reported the country's first death because of COVID-19. Australia has reported 26 confirmed cases of the coronavirus to date.

There has been a cascading series of technology conference cancellations, starting with Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2020 in Barcelona, following by GDC and Facebook's F8 conference.

"Thank you for your continued support of IoT in Action and we will be in touch shortly with details of upcoming events," Microsoft said.

In mid-February, Cisco cancelled its flagship Cisco Live conference in Melbourne and later in the month, Salesforce cancelled its physical regional World Tour event for Sydney.

There have been more than 87,000 people infected and nearly 3,000 deaths globally since the virus emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December.