Microsoft and KKBOX Group launch global strategic partnership

TAIPEI,Dec. 23,2019 -- Microsoft Taiwan and Asia's leading media technology company,KKBOX Group,jointly announced today the launch of a global strategic partnership that will migrate the group's subsidiary KKBOX's music streaming services to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Additionally,KKBOX Group subsidiary KKStream has joined Microsoft's global partner network to release BlendVision™,a next-generation commercial video streaming solution that will harness data and AI to effectively reduce operating costs of over-the-top (OTT) platform operators. Microsoft and KKBOX Group will alsojointly use data and AI to optimize its music-creation system and explore new music-listening possibilities for consumers. This cooperation is a milestone for KKBOX Group's internationalization initiative and opens up more possibilities for the digital entertainment industry.

Microsoft Taiwan and Asia’s leading media technology company,jointly announced the launch of a global strategic partnership.

"The media and entertainment industries are going through a transformation as studios,broadcasters and other rich media content creators,such as over-the-top (OTT) service providers,are facing pressure to innovate on how they deliver content to their audiences while getting smarter on using data to their advantage," said Bob De Haven,general manager,Worldwide Media & Communications Industries,Microsoft. "KKBOX has been at the forefront of the entertainment industry in Asia,providing world-class entertainment to users and continuing to experiment and innovate with technology. We are thrilled that KKBOX has chosen Azure to provide the company with intelligent platforms that unlock creativity and collaboration,bring content to market faster and engage audiences."

Serving the Asian market for over 15 years,KKBOX Group isnowexpanding globally. It integrates big data-- including music,video,show ticketing and e-commerce-- and leverages AI to provide users with better experiences and artists,creators,and concert organizers with business insights.

"KKBOX Group offers consumers a wide range of entertainment experiences in Asia," said Co-founder and CEO,Chris Lin. "We are pleased to partner with Microsoft to migrate KKBOX music to Azure,address streaming technology challenges by co-selling BlendVision globally,and develop AI music creation."

Key initiatives of the partnership include:

1. KKBOX Streaming Service migrates to Microsoft Azure:

By partnering with Microsoft to fully migrate KKBOX music streaming services onto Microsoft's Azure cloud platform,KKBOX Group is meeting consumer demand for high-speed streaming services and highly differentiated entertainment experiences. The partnership will allow KKBOX to provide faster development,manage resource scheduling and flexibly adjust traffic to develop more meta services,aligned with the digital entertainment industry's trend of accelerating digital services.

Microsoft Azure has more regions than any other cloud provider,with 55 datacenter regions,to offer the scale needed to deploy services and applications on demand to enterprises around the world. This coverage helps enterprises deploy services on demand. With high-standard information security,KKBOX can rapidly deploy innovative services to international markets while ensuring that data is protected by comprehensive security measures. Microsoft is committed to promoting enterprise digital transformation with front-end technology,assisting customers and partners in various industries to adopt AI and the cloud to optimize enterprise resource deployment and operation processes,and to expand their global business territories through joint sales plans. This strategic cooperation with KKBOX Group is a milestone for Microsoft in the digital entertainment industry.

2. KKStream launches commercial video streaming technology solution-- BlendVision:

BlendVision,launched by KKStream,is a next-generation commercial video streaming solution that empowers global streaming platform operators through a software as a service (SaaS) offering,reducing operating costs and improving user experiences while developing services that create new monetization models. BlendVision will launch "BlendVision Video Streaming" combined with "Per-Title Encoding (PTE)" to effectively reduce operating costs of OTT platform operators by using AI to identify different bitrates for video compression and transcoding,greatly reducing transmission bandwidth and saving storage space.

An independently developed image enhancement technology called Perceptual Streaming Engine (PSE) will be added to enhance the visual performance of the original video and double the quality of low-resolution videos into high definition (HD) for optimal streaming image quality. These two technologies (PTE + PSE) together can further reduce platform operator transmission costs by 80% so users get the highest image quality with the lowest traffic. The cooperation between Microsoft and KKStream will be based on the SaaS model,with BlendVision's service architecture built on Azure,helping to deliver new services to consumers. Meanwhile,Microsoft's global sales and service teams will assist in implementation. Microsoft and KKBOX already foresee 10 potential customers in the Asian region,symbolizing proof of endless global business opportunities as a result of this strategic alliance.

3. Both parties to jointly develop AI-enabled music production system for producers:

KKBOX will leverage Microsoft AI technology to build an AI-assisted music arrangement system and an AI-assisted lyric generator. In addition,the group will create a predictive model that uses data and AI to forecast the commercial success of a song. KKBOX and Microsoft believe that the digital entertainment industry is facing a transformation and must use technology to make content faster and smoother for users and to use a data-driven approach to create personalized services. AI will become the most important advancement in this transformation. KKBOX is one of the world's earliest legal music streaming platforms,providing services since 2005. It has successfully changed consumer listening behavior,and the music industry's business model is changing accordingly. KKBOX Group and Microsoft aim to leverage AI to explore new opportunities,create new trends and transform the entertainment market.

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