Earlier this week, reports emerged about Microsoft planning to deprecate Azure IoT Central. This was due to a system message sent on the Azure console, stating that Azure IoT Central would shut down on March 31st, 2027, and that no new application resources could be created starting on April 1, 2024.
Late on Friday, Microsoft posted a new blog entry saying that the system message was sent out in error. It added:
Microsoft does not communicate product retirements using system messages. When we do announce Azure product retirements, we follow our standard Azure service notification process including a notification period of 3-years before discontinuing support.
The blog post also reassured Microsoft"s commitment to Azure IoT services. It says it wanted to help customers create IoT solutions for their businesses and that it is "a key part of the adaptive cloud approach."
Microsoft is currently running a public preview of Azure IoT Operations. The company says this new system was designed to make it easier to deploy IoT services while also offering its users more control of their IoT devices and data.
Azure IoT Central became generally available in September 2018. At the time, Microsoft promoted it as a way for businesses that did not have cloud solution experience to operate and manage their IoT services.
Microsoft has indeed deprecated a number of features and services in 2023, including Windows features like WordPad, the Cortana digital assistant, VBScript, and many more.
Already in 2024, Microsoft has announced it will end support for Windows Mixed Reality headsets on November 1, 2026, for consumer Windows editions and on November 1, 2027, for commercial Windows editions. It also plans to end support for the classic Teams app on June 30, 2024, and the Mail and Calendar apps for Windows 10 will see their support end by the end of 2024.