Samsung Electronics, one of the world's biggest electronics companies, has chosen to implement Microsoft cloud technology by integrating Windows Azure with its Smart TV infrastructure.
Samsung announced on Monday, July 2, that it has chosen to use Windows Azure technology to manage the Smart TV system through cloud-based technology, as online services play an increasingly more important role in the TV selection process. According to the company, this move would allow for a reduction in costs, increased productivity, as well as a flexible, scalable model which can be expanded to benefit its growing customer base.
Samsung currently offers its Smart TV service in 120 countries, and aims to expand its services even further. As part of this effort, the tech giant said it opted for Windows Azure in order to avoid any reliability concerns, and also because Azure can support a continual increase in traffic. Upon testing the platform, Samsung found that it offered greater speed compared to competitors, mainly within the Asia region.
While scalability was one of the main concerns, Samsung said that Windows Azure allowed it to quickly store and secure resources. This way, the company can focus on expanding its business rather than dealing with security issues.
"After extensive testing, Windows Azure is the only cloud offering that met our exacting conditions," said an official at Samsung Electronics' visual display business unit, according to the press release. Using Azure reportedly proved to be one-tenth the cost of expanding Samsung's in-house IT services to handle Smart TV traffic.
"Samsung Electronics' Smart TV is taking advantage of the unique capabilities of Windows Azure," said Bob Kelly, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Windows Azure. "Windows Azure gives Samsung the ability to focus on its business rather than having its technical team deal with problem-solving and troubleshooting issues."
Microsoft's Windows Azure is a modern cloud computing platform designed to build, host and scale Web applications through various data centers hosted by the company. This cloud computing platform consists of several key services, including the Windows Azure operating system, SQL Azure, as well as Windows Azure AppFabric.
According to Samsung officials, the company needed an optimum solution that would provide ongoing and reliable service, while also handling a continual increase in traffic. Also, Samsung wanted to avoid depending on specific suppliers, which made Azure the best solution because Azure hosting is available from Microsoft itself, but also from Fujitsu, for instance.
