CineTrailer captivates audiences with Windows Azure

REDMOND, Wash., June 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- CineTrailer, a pan-European app developed by DDM, an Italian digital media agency, has migrated its back-end technology to Windows Azure from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help users choose and view movies via the Web, mobile devices or connected TVs. The company has also built its app for optimization on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Since the migration to Windows Azure in 2012, the CineTrailer app has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times, and is available in 11 countries and in nine languages throughout Europe.

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"Transitioning to Windows Azure has allowed us to change, evolve and scale rapidly to meet our customers' needs," said Marco Dufour, chief executive officer at DDM and head of development at CineTrailer. "It costs roughly half of what we were previously paying, and we don't have the costs associated with preparing and maintaining a dedicated database server. With Windows Azure all we need is a few lines of code and we can deploy our app in a fully scalable environment."

The CineTrailer application enables users to watch a movie trailer and then find the nearest theater at which movie is playing via GPS. Users can also bookmark their favorite theaters and put a calendar alert to be reminded of the moment a desired movie is available for viewing.

"Windows Phone was the original environment in which CineTrailer was born and we're particularly enthusiastic about it," said Camillo Morganti, chairman of the board of DDM. "Working with the platform turned out to be an easy task, thanks to the myriad of fantastic features the mobile OS offers, like Live Tiles and swipe interfaces. Windows 8, too, has been a natural evolution and a great way for us to seamlessly engage users on two environments at the same time: tablets and PCs."

CineTrailer also decided to build its app for Windows 8 and Windows Phone because employees were already familiar with other Microsoft platforms before the deployment, having started their experience as professionals with Visual Studio, ASP and SQL Server and subsequently having transitioned to the .NET platform. This meant less time was needed for developers to get comfortable with the platforms and an increased focus could be placed on getting the product to market.

"We are experiencing good results from our Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps," Dufour said. "We see Windows 8 as a market changer and we think that developers have just started to see its tremendous potential. As developers ourselves, we've been immersed in visual environments for 15 years, but found the Microsoft platforms truly support both developers and editors. Windows Azure, Windows 8 and Windows Phone are natural fits for us, and are helping us change the way in which users consume and enjoy content."

More information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available on the Microsoft Customer Spotlight newsroom.

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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.