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Microsoft buys real-time operating system vendor Express Logic

Microsoft has purchased Express Logic, maker of ThreadX RTOS, one of the most widely deployed real-time operating systems for microcontroller-based devices.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

Microsoft has acquired Express Logic, a maker of real-time operating systems for IoT/edge devices for an undisclosed amount. According to Microsoft, Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS is one of the most deployed RTOSes for microcontroller-based devices in the world. 

Microsoft officials announced the Express Logic acquisition on April 18, less than a week ahead of its April 24 earnings report for its fiscal 2019 Q3.

Microsoft officials said ThreadX RTOS is "complementary with" Azure Sphere, Microsoft's own Azure-powered IoT security solution for microcontroller-based devices.

"While we recommend Azure Sphere for customers' most secured connections to the cloud, where Azure Sphere isn't possible in highly constrained devices, we recommend Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS over other RTOS options in the industry because of its additional certifications and out-of-the-box connectivity to Azure IoT Hub," said Sam George, Microsoft's Director of Azure IoT in a blog post.

Express Logic has more than 6.2 billion deployments to date, according to Microsoft's blog post. ThreadX RTOS works on even highly-constrained devices, such as those which are batter-powered and with less than 64KB of flash memory, Microsoft's post says.

Express Logic is based in San Diego and was founded in 1996.

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