Avid has renewed its cloud collaboration with Microsoft and signed a new five-year agreement to use Microsoft Azure.
It will enable them to build on early success in helping media companies move to content workflows in the cloud, something that has proved invaluable recently since the start of the Covid-19 crisis.
Since launching their initial collaboration, Avid and Microsoft have helped some of the world’s largest media companies to move their film and television content workflows into the cloud, which has enabled teams – including hundreds of editors, journalists and other contributors – to collaborate on movies, TV shows and other content on a global scale.
Over the course of the new strategic alliance agreement Avid will continue to develop and deploy cloud-based offerings on Azure. Together, Avid and Microsoft have already produced several media workflows running in the cloud, including collaborative editing, content archiving, active backup and production continuity.
Since the onset of the pandemic, the two companies have also mobilised rapidly to aid numerous Avid clients urgently needing to transition their production personnel to working remotely from their homes in order to keep entertainment and news content pipelines flowing. Available solutions for remote working include the scalable and secure Avid | Edit On Demand virtualised production environment, based on its Media Composer video editing software and Avid Nexis storage running on Azure.
“Avid is very proud of its early strategic collaboration with Microsoft Azure, which has driven the era of cloud-based media creation beyond experimentation to today’s first large-scale commercial deployments with some of the most exciting media and entertainment brands,” said Jeff Rosica, Avid’s CEO and president. “I’m very pleased that our shared accomplishments also prepared us to be ready to respond swiftly and keep Avid customers at work when the global health pandemic hit the industry overnight. Building on the lessons learned during this pandemic, the companies are well prepared for what we believe will be an accelerated pace of cloud adoption – entering a new phase of innovation to provide broadcasters, film studios and post houses of all sizes with more powerful technology solutions to enable flexible remote working, ensure better business continuity and allow content creation teams to collaborate faster, more easily and on a much bigger global scale.”
Tad Brockway, corporate vice president for Microsoft Azure Storage, Media and Edge said: “Avid | Edit on Demand, on Microsoft Azure, is the latest example of how cloud can be used to deliver industry workflows that are simple, flexible and scalable. We were pleased to help Avid bring this solution to market to help customers during the global health pandemic and look forward to working together to help this industry transform.”
No comments yet