The Record - Issue 18: Autumn 2020

19 Universal and DreamWorks transform animation with Azure Universal Filmed Entertainment Group has partnered with Microsoft to transform animation and deliver production workflows via the Microsoft Azure cloud for remote collaboration and content creation. Microsoft says that “the teams will extend DreamWorks Animation’s cutting-edge production platform to include live-action production”. To create the new platform, DreamWorks’ and Universal’s technical teams will work with Microsoft developers to take advantage of Azure’s storage and compute platform to support animation and live-action content creation. Microsoft says that “Universal plans to leverage this new capability on Azure to enable easy remote production collaboration, asset reuse, and ubiquitous compute and storage to empower creatives to do their best work”. “Together with customers like Universal and DreamWorks, we are prioritising cloud and edge technologies to help transform workflows, increase production output and reduce friction for creatives,” said Hanno Basse, media and entertainment chief technology officer for Microsoft Azure. “Working together, we aspire to create technology for the industry, with the industry, so they can tell stories the world loves.” MECOMS joins Microsoft Inner Circle Technology provider for the energy and utility industry MECOMS has joined Microsoft’s 2020/2021 Inner Circle for Microsoft Business Applications. The membership in the group is based on customer solution and sales achievements, which ranks MECOMS among the top of Microsoft’s global network of partners. Inner Circle members have performed to a high standard of excellence by delivering valuable solutions that help organisations achieve increased success. “This is really the result of our long-term relationship with Microsoft that started in 2005 as well as the never ending enthusiasm and work that our team has done together with Microsoft to build our state-of-the-art MECOMS product through those years,” said Tom Van Haute, chief operating officer at MECOMS. Gravity Software updates cloud accounting solution Gravity Software has recently released several major updates to its cloud accounting solution stack. The company, which built its solution on the Microsoft Power Platform, now provides a complete solution for companies that need industry- specific job-costing capabilities. The Job Cost solution is designed to assist contractors, subcontractors, and specialist contractors automate and streamline their accounting, job costing, billing, resource planning, document management and reporting needs. Gravity has also launched the new Multi-Currency management feature and enhanced its Multi-Entity module. These updates provide better efficiencies for businesses that are managing multiple entities and need to transact in different currencies.