Walt Disney Studios go to cloud with new partnership with Microsoft »OnMSFT.com

Microsoft announced this morning a new five-year innovation partnership with The Walt Disney Studios, which will drive the studioLAB technology branch of the US film studio to use Azure for film production and distribution. While teams around the world sometimes shoot big-budget movies, the film studio hopes that cloud editing will dramatically improve the production process.

"By transferring many of our workflows and post-production to the cloud, we are optimistic that we can create content faster and more efficiently around the world," said Jamie Voris, CTO, The Walt Disney Studios. . "Through this innovation partnership with Microsoft, we are able to streamline many of our processes so that our talented filmmakers can focus on what they do best."

In an interview with Variety, Varis also said that one of the reasons why Walt Disney Studios chose Microsoft as a cloud partner is that unlike Amazon or Google, giant Redmond does not have great ambitions in the media space. What Kate Johnson, president of Microsoft US, confirmed to Variety, added that Microsoft (unlike its competitors) did not want to use customer data to improve its own offers.

Voris said Walt Disney Studios had chosen Microsoft to launch its ambitions in the cloud because some of its competitors in the cloud were not so focused on the multimedia space. Johnson acknowledged that the company was trying to beat the competition in Hollywood. "We like to think of ourselves as a cloud platform for media and entertainment," she said.

Part of this was due to Microsoft's adoption of the media as a strategic growth opportunity for Azure. However, Johnson also pointed to the fact that some Hollywood people might be reluctant to work with competing cloud giants operating their own media companies – a not-so-subtle dig at Amazon and Google, who have at times been accused of using data . the ideas they get from their partners to boost their own businesses. "We just do not do that," she said.

While Walt Disney studios have already begun to integrate Azure into its film production process, a StudioLAB representative told Variety that we may have to wait between 12 and 18 months to see the first fully-mounted Azure cloud movies .

Further reading: Azure, Cloud, Disney, Microsoft