India's Eros Now Collaborates With Microsoft To Build Online Video Platform on Azure Cloud Platform

Microsoft and Eros Now recently announced a collaboration to build up the next generation online video platform on Microsoft Azure targeted at its consumers across the globe.

Eros will use the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN), and Azure Media Services to develop a new, intuitive online video platform to offer seamless delivery of content. The video platform targets customers across the languages and geographies.

Executive Opinion

CEO- Eros Digital, Rishika Lulla Singh, said, "The Online Video market has brought a paradigm shift in the way technology is used and will be used to enhance the customer journey and user experience. We at Eros Now have been the earliest movers in the adoption of technology which is a core strength of the brand. The objective and the goal of this collaboration is to ensure we become the primary innovators for the video business and a gold standard for the others to follow. We have immense respect for Microsoft as a company to help us innovate and pave the path for the next generation of online video."

Executive Vice President, Microsoft, Corp., Peggy Johnson,   said, "As an innovator in the on-demand video, Eros Now has been transforming the way millions of people access and consume content. By using our combined expertise across technology and media, we have an opportunity to build on that foundation and re-imagine entertainment for the rapidly growing audience of digitally-connected consumers in India."

Microsoft Azure and India's Video Platforms

Microsoft also recently partnered with Walt Disney Studios to create, produce and distribute content on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Eros will work to create new interactive voice offerings for the consumers and leverage the Azure AI tools. These AI tools include the OTT app video search experiences and voice search for video content across the 10 Indian languages, the announcement notes.

Eros will further create an engine to deliver the personalized content recommendations for the consumers by using its own user data, analytics, cloud data warehousing, Azure media services, and combined with Azure AI.

According to the Counterpoint Research survey, Hotstar is the top player among India's OTT video platform. Amazon’s Prime Video, SonyLIV, Netflix, Voot, Zee5, ALTBalaji, and ErosNow follow the next positions. ErosNow has the highest percentage (27%) of its users consuming content on Smart TVs.  ErosNow is the only major Indian OTT platform to partner new Apple TV+ service, the survey says.

Among all the networks in India, Reliance Jio is the most popular network, followed by the Vodafone Idea and Airtel, said the survey.

In November 2018, ZEE5 choose Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud services provider. ZEE5 is a video on demand platform owned by the Indian Media Company Zee Enterprises.