Conversations are now about when the Cloud transition will happen, not if'

Jenny Priestley and OWNZONES CEO Dan Goman discuss lockdowns impact on the media industry, IMF adoption, and what the future holds

By Jenny Priestley

Published: July 16, 2020

Jenny Priestley and OWNZONES CEO Dan Goman discuss lockdown's impact on the media industry, IMF adoption, and what the future holds

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As the media technology industry slowly begins to emerge from lockdown, in Europe at least, what conclusions can be drawn from how the sector dealt with the impact?

Certainly, it can be argued that lockdown has seen the industry fully embrace Cloud as a way of continuing to create content.

OWNZONES CEO Dan Goman talks to Jenny Priestley about the challenges of the past few months, and what the future holds.

How have the past few months been for Ownzones? The past few months at OWNZONES have been busy, in large part due to the pandemic. The industry has seen a substantial surge in demand for content while folks have been at home, but content creators have had to face the shutting down of their on-prem facilities. In response, we've been helping content companies transition operations to the Cloud and in some cases, implement OWNZONES Connect as a Disaster Recovery solution, shifting their workflows to the Cloud in order to help them maintain business continuity during this challenging time.

How has the company been impacted by lockdown? Because our solutions are built natively in the Cloud, our regular operations have been virtually unaffected by the lockdown. Our platforms OWNZONES Connect and OWNZONES Discover are well-suited for remote workflows-all a user needs in order to access the platforms is a laptop and a browser. So, the transition to remote working has been fairly seamless. This has allowed us to focus on lending our services to more clients in need of cloud- based supply chain solutions.

What have you heard from customers in terms of changes they've had to make due to the pandemic? The main factor that prohibited studios and post houses from maintaining business operations due to the pandemic was the fact that their assets, programmes, and tool sets were all located on-prem in facilities that they could no longer access. In addition, since production has all but halted, broadcasters were forced to turn to their archives in order to fill content schedules.

Studios with large content libraries were sitting on huge archives that could be monetised if they had the right solution that enabled remote-working. We have been helping these customers automatically conform and consolidate their content with our AI-based tools as part of a larger migration of their content and workflows to the Cloud so that they can continue to move content along the supply chain. After getting their content into the Cloud, our customers have expressed that they love the Connect capability of push-button delivery to hundreds of different endpoints, whether those are broadcasters, OTT platforms, or other fulfilment partners.

What impact do you think the pandemic will have on the media tech industry over the next 12-18 months? The entire industry is essentially now using the Cloud in some form to collaborate, be productive, and work efficiently. When the dust settles and we all get back to work, folks will sit down to ask what worked and what are the lessons. Most certainly, there will be an industry-wide shift away from on-premise infrastructure to the Cloud. Almost all of our customers are now looking for Cloud-based content servicing and supply chain platforms that offer a flexible implementation model as either a wholesale replacement or the augmentation of existing infrastructure and workflows.

Do you think the lockdown will accelerate the move to Cloud workflows rather than technology remaining on-prem? Absolutely, and it already has. Cloud adoption has skyrocketed. In the next 12 months, that adoption will only continue to rise. It's interesting to note that C-level conversations are now about when the Cloud transition will happen as opposed to if - and in some cases, we are hearing that insurance carriers are forcing their customers to the Cloud as a condition of their insurance coverage. The Cloud has been instrumental in maintaining business processes and this trend will persist throughout the next year. While some companies may initially attempt to transition back to their traditional on-prem workflows once things return to normal, most will realise that they never want to be caught unprepared in this position again, and they'll transition their systems and workflows to the Cloud so that they remain productive and successful if the lights go out again in the future. Rising adoption will mean advancements in innovative Cloud technology that the market hasn't seen before.

During lockdown, Ownzones won a Best of Show Special Edition Award for your new SaaS platform Connect. Can you tell us more about the platform and who it is aimed at? OWNZONES Connect is a content servicing and supply chain platform built in the Cloud. The Cloud-native platform is aimed at content creators and owners who are looking to take advantage of the cost savings and workflow efficiencies of the Cloud while simultaneously automating their production, distribution, and archival workflows through a suite of best-in-breed microservices. Such microservices include tools like FrameDNA, which consolidates content versions in the Cloud; Deep Analysis, which analyses media and identifies various layout/formatting elements; and the Metadata

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