Despite the turbulence of 2020, smart buildings are still high on the agenda for the world’s biggest technology companies. This week, Samsung and Microsoft announced a global collaboration focused on digitally transforming the real estate development and property management industries. While pushing out the standard promises and benefits for all stakeholders, the collaboration actually makes a lot of sense and extends the trend of big-tech smart building collaborations into the post-COVID era. “This collaboration, combining smart appliances and digital cloud technologies, aims at helping to drive improved building operations and maintenance, along with creating better experiences for both service technicians and residents,” the official statement reads. “This new strategic alliance brings together the power of Microsoft’s Azure IoT platform and productivity cloud services with Samsung’s smart devices and SmartThings platform, to help optimize building operations, equipment maintenance, energy management, asset performance, and new tenant experiences for commercial, hospitality and residential buildings as well as mixed-use […]