A couple of months ago, Microsoft approached us and asked if they could showcase MediaValet at their annual developers conference, Build 2012, at the end of October. We thought about it - for about a second - and said "heck yes!"

...Well, we had no idea what we had agreed to.



On Wednesday, October 10th, we all arrived at our office and were confronted by a huge lighting truck parked right in front of our main entrance. None of us thought this could be for the film crew as we just couldn't comprehend what was involved in creating what was supposed to be a 4 minute video. We had thought they would be in and out of our office in a couple of hours – max.

The film crew arrived at 8 AM that morning and within an hour we had so much lighting and video equipment in our office that we could barely move. And this was just the beginning. The first shot they set up was an interview with our CEO, David MacLaren, in his office. The poor guy was interviewed for two and a half hours. It looked like he had a lot of fun but TWO AND A HALF HOURS! That's a lot of time to be constantly talking. David covered things like our history, how we were first created as a tool for VRX Studios to manage over 20 terabytes of imagery for it's thousands of hotel customers, to becoming a standalone digital asset management service for companies of all sizes, in all industries, all over the world; why we chose Microsoft's Windows Azure platform-as-a-service (PaaS) cloud platform over Amazon and Google's infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud offerings; and why we do what we do. Next up was our CTO, Jean Lozano. Over the next hour and half, Jean discussed specific challenges we faced developing on Azure and how we overcame them.



Once the interviews were done, it was our turn. The film crew set up and shot several action sequences around our offices showing the type of things we do everyday. From programming, to working with digital assets, to customer service and training. It was quite fun to be in front of the camera showing off what we do. The film crew finally left at just before 6 PM. Whew! What a day. And all for 4 minutes of video. We can't wait to see it at Build.

Here are a couple more shots from the day of filming.

(…okay, Microsoft's)

Follow Rory Cellan-Jones, from BBC News, on a tour through one of Microsoft's cloud computing centres that's located in the US. To watch the video, click here.

CopperEgg wrote an article about how Windows Azure is enabling companies like MediaValet to improve their operations and achieve greater cloud scalability. Here is the first bit of the article:

Microsoft has continued to offer its cloud computing solutions to help companies of all types to improve their operations. The vendor recently announced that VRX Studios, a global content services and photography business – which is now operating under MediaValet – has adopted the Windows Azure platform to replace its digital management system to achieve greater cloud scalability.

By providing MediaValet with the new cloud solution, Microsoft also said it is the first vendor to establish a digital asset management system that is 100 percent cloud-based.

"Windows Azure enabled us to harness more than a decade of experience in producing, managing, distributing and licensing digital media to build an enterprise-class digital asset management system – in less than 12 months – that can compete with the best and biggest in the digital asset management industry," said VRX founder and CEO David MacLaren.

MacLaren also said that launching an asset management solution before the availability of an option like Windows Azure would have been difficult for a variety of reasons. He said large budgets and a "massive" IT team would have been needed to support this system.

To read the rest of the article, please click here.

Peter Wolchak recently wrote this article about how cloud computing is steadily creating new jobs around the world.

Cloud computing will create almost 14 million new jobs worldwide by the end of 2015, with more than 70,000 of those being created in Canada. In Toronto alone, the growth of new cloud-related jobs will average 20 per cent annually, resulting in more than 14,500 by 2015. Those numbers are from an IDC study commissioned by Microsoft, which said in a report that these impressive numbers will be generated because the cloud is "so cost-effective that businesses of all sizes are moving away from the expensive maintenance of legacy systems, and instead opting to build on top of the cloud's common infrastructure."

Currently, IDC said 75 per cent of worldwide IT spending is tied up with the maintenance of legacy systems and routine upgrades.

The study also concluded that:

• In 2011, more than $28 billion was spent on cloud services worldwide
• In 2011, the cloud helped businesses around the world generate more than US$400 billion in additional revenues and 1.5 million new jobs
• More than 50 per cent of those jobs were in small and medium businesses
• By 2015 in Toronto, businesses with less than 500 staff will see an increase of more than 6,300 new jobs; larger companies will increase by more than 8,100 jobs.

Hello everyone, I had the honour of being asked by Microsoft to tell our cloud story at the launch of the documentary 'Ctrl+Alt+Compete' last week in Vancouver and I have to say, I was extremely impressed by the film. I was surprised how raw it was and that Microsoft didn't pull any punches.

If you're a budding entrepreneur and you're thinking of (or envisioning) raising money from a VC firm, I highly recommend watching this film.

Ctrl+Alt+Compete is a new documentary that takes a revealing look at the startup and emerging business scene through the eyes of 5 founders and their teams and tells a story of the passion, fortitude and insanity that is bringing a startup to life. The film follows these visionaries as they face the challenges and obstacles of making their vision a reality alongside the insights and analysis of seasoned, industry watchers and tech sector pioneers.

Ctrl+Alt+Compete has only been released to select audiences so far but here's the trailer to give you an idea of what's to come. As soon as the film is available to the general public, I'll post a link on our blog.



If you want to find out more about Ctrl+Alt+Delete, here are a few other links (all three are worth checking out):

MSDN Blog Post (lots of background information)
Facebook Page (join the community)
Twitter (good for quick updates)

If this truly does reflect what the future holds for us and the role that technology will play in our lives, imagine what the user interface of MediaValet will look and act like. We're imagining it right now and we can't wait for technology to catch up so we can deliver it to you.

View Microsoft's video on Youtube.