Partnership aims to empower manufacturers with agility, intelligence, and scale to deliver digital transformation initiatives—from the cloud to the edge

MILWAUKEE, U.S. - Media OutReach - 7 October 2020 - RockwellAutomation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announceda five-year partnership expansion to develop integrated, market-ready solutionsthat help industrial customers improve digital agility through cloud technology.By combining each company's expertise in the industrial and IT markets, respectively,teams can work together more seamlessly, enabling industrial organizations to saveon infrastructure costs, speed time-to-value, and increase productivity.

Microsoft and Rockwell are working to deliver innovative edge-to-cloud-basedsolutions that connect information between development, operations andmaintenance teams through a singular, trusted data environment. This will allowdevelopment teams to digitally prototype, configure and collaborate withoutinvesting in costly physical equipment. This unified information environment alsoenables IT and OT teams to not only securely access and share data models acrossthe organization, but with their ecosystem of partners as well.

"Today, one thing we know for sure isthat no business is 100% resilient. Those fortified with digital capabilitiesand assets are more resilient than others, and the cloud is how they willthrive," said Judson Althoff, executive vice president of worldwide commercialbusiness, Microsoft. "We are pleased to deepen our already strong, decade-longrelationship with Rockwell Automation to help businesses simplify industrialtransformation, accelerate business outcomes and innovate with agility."

To date, thecompanies have co-developed over 20 use cases across Food & Beverage,Household and Personal Care and Life Sciences industries. The solutionsdeveloped from this partnership will augment and enhance our current offerings.

"This partnership provides Rockwell Automation and Microsoftcustomers with a holistic, simple solution for IIoT development and operationsand removes data silos that hinder industrial digital transformation initiatives,"said Blake Moret, Chairman and CEO of Rockwell Automation. "By eliminating acore barrier to automation initiatives, industrial organizations establish adigital thread connecting the entire enterprise, which in turn acceleratesinnovation, maximizes productivity and optimizes operations."

"Our team has seen the preview release of this new solutionand we are excited about collaboration between our strategic partners, RockwellAutomation and Microsoft," said Tristan Hunter, GM Automation & OperationalTechnology at Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited, New Zealand's largestcompany and responsible for 30% of the world's dairy exports. "Moving data fromour on-premise assets securely with context and providing new workflows for usto analyze and drive better outcomes is important to maintaining Fonterra'shigh standards across our many plants globally."

Organizations can access Rockwell Automation solutions nowvia the MicrosoftAzure Marketplace with more solutions currently in development. The nextphase of co-innovation solutions will be available to joint customers ofRockwell Automation and Microsoft customers in Q1 2021 at AutomationFair At Home.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) enables digitaltransformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Itsmission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet toachieve more.

About Rockwell Automation

RockwellAutomation Inc. (NYSE: ROK), is a global leader in industrialautomation and digital transformation. We connect the imaginations of peoplewith the potential of technology to expand what is humanly possible, making theworld more productive and more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee,Wisconsin, Rockwell Automation employs approximately 23,000 problem solversdedicated to our customers in more than 100 countries. To learn more about howwe are bringing The Connected Enterprise to life across industrial enterprises,visit www.rockwellautomation.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains statements about future growthand growth acceleration, business performance, the integration and developmentof solutions, the closing of the equity transaction and the use of proceeds andshare repurchases. These statements are "forward-looking statements" as definedin the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as"believe", "estimate", "project", "plan", "expect", "anticipate", "will","intend" and other similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements.Actual results may differ materially from those projected as a result ofcertain risks and uncertainties, including the fact that growth may not occuror accelerate as expected, subscription may not grow profitably as expected,the equity investment may not close when or as expected and any use of proceedsor share repurchases may not occur as expected, and the integration of thesolutions and development of future solutions may not occur as expected, andthose risks and uncertainties described in the companies' filingswith U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-lookingstatements reflect our beliefs as of the date of filing this release. We undertakeno obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as aresult of new information, future events or otherwise.