Walt Disney announced partnership with Microsoft Azure for cloud innovation

​​​​​​​The cloud seems to welcome every company these days, and Walt Disney doesn’t want to be an outsider after the company has partnered with Azure of Microsoft.

The two companies will shake hands for at least 5 years to work on an innovation lab. Their purpose is to transfer content production to the Azure cloud and streamline the workflow of Disney’s personnel.

The involvement of Walt Disney in this partnership is conducted through the company’s StudioLAB which is an innovative workspace in which Disney employees can carry out different experiments to transfer the workflows to the cloud. This process also involves Avid, the movie production software company.


The three partners hope that their collaboration can result in creative and cloud-based workflows leading to improved innovation at Walt Disney. To stay ahead, every big player wants to continuously innovate despite their field, which is what Disney is trying to do.

The movie industry now requires more computing resources, so the cloud stands out as the perfect solution since it allows the production companies to modify their resources as they please such as in rendering scenes or making special effects. According to Walt Disney’s CTO Jamie Voris, the cloud can help make these processes more efficient. As a result, it can lower production costs and duration.

Voris said that partnering with Microsoft helped Disney optimize many processes, so their moviemakers can concentrate on their expertise. The aim of applying the cloud in the movie industry is similar to in other sectors: speeding up time to enter the market and letting technology deal with more routine tasks.   


Before the deal with Disney, Microsoft has already teamed up with Acid to develop workflows which are based on the cloud for the movie industry by integrating Avid software solutions on Microsoft’s Azure. After that, Disney joined the existing fold to add its unique insider’s requirements to the tripartite partnership. The big player in the film industry hopes that during the 5 years of their collaboration it can optimize a part of its workflow through the application of the cloud technology.


"The cloud has reached a tipping point for the media industry, and it's not surprising that The Walt Disney Studios, which has its heritage based on a passion for innovation and technology, is at the forefront of this transformation," said Kate Johnson, president of Microsoft US. "With Azure as the platform cloud for content, we're excited to work with the team at StudioLAB to continue to drive innovation across Disney's broad portfolio of studios."

According to Variety, the implementation of production workflows on the Azure platform has already begun, and a representative of StudioLab said that first movies which have been edited via the cloud may come to the cinema in the next 12 to 18 months.

By: Joe Cook