The Walt Disney Company Selects AWS as its Preferred Public Cloud Infrastructure Provider
9:00 am ET November 29, 2017 (BusinessWire) Print Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced that The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) has selected AWS as its preferred public cloud infrastructure provider. Disney will expand its use of AWS to migrate production workloads to the AWS Cloud. Disney already leverages AWS's industry-leading services for a wide variety of use cases, including websites and digital properties across all its brands, analytics, mobile, business applications, and machine learning.
For more than eight years, AWS and Disney have collaborated to drive IT innovation. AWS has provided ongoing architectural best-practices support to enable Disney's planned migrations from on-premises to a cloud-based architecture. Disney's various segments, including Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, and The Walt Disney Studios, currently run business-critical workloads on AWS, driving optimal operational performance and customer experiences.
"Expanding our strategic relationship with AWS and making AWS our preferred public cloud infrastructure provider aligns with our overall technical strategy," said Charles Weiner, Senior Vice President Enterprise Infrastructure Services for The Walt Disney Company. "We have had success modernizing our IT operations and transforming the digital presence of our brands using AWS. We look forward to our continued collaboration as we accelerate our Digital Platform migration to the public cloud."
"Leading enterprises across a wide range of industries turn to AWS for its unmatched breadth of functionality, compute capacity, highly scalable infrastructure, and proven operational expertise," said Mike Clayville, Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Sales at AWS. "For as long as I can remember, Disney's entertainment has brought millions of families together. Now, we are excited to be part of their technology family, helping them scale, add new services, and innovate with speed so they can continue to delight people every day, around the world."
About Amazon Web Services For more than 11 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 100 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, and application development, deployment, and management from 44 Availability Zones (AZs) across 16 geographic regions in the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the UK. AWS services are trusted by millions of active customers around the world--including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies--to power their infrastructure, make them more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit https://aws.amazon.com.
About Amazon Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
About The Walt Disney Company: The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries, is a diversified worldwide entertainment company with operations in four business segments: Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, Studio Entertainment, and Consumer Products & Interactive Media. Disney is a Dow 30 company and had annual revenues of $55.1 billion in its Fiscal Year 2017. For more information, visit http://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com.
Date : 12/02/2017 @ 2:23PM Source : Dow Jones News Stock : Comcast Corp. (MM) (CMCSA) Quote : 38.43 0.89 (2.37%) @ 8:00PM Disney Re-Engages in Talks to Buy 21st Century Fox Assets--2nd Update
By Dana Mattioli and Amol Sharma Walt Disney Co. has re-engaged in discussions with 21st Century Fox to purchase some of the media giant's assets, and Comcast Corp. remains in the mix, with deal talks gaining momentum, according to people familiar with the situation.
The talks center on the Twentieth Century Fox movie and TV studio, international assets such as Fox's 39% holding in U.K. satellite TV provider Sky PLC and India's Star TV, along with some U.S. cable networks. Fox News, the Fox broadcast network and sports network FS1 aren't expected to be sold in any transaction, the people said.
Rupert Murdoch and his family, who hold 39% of 21st Century Fox's voting shares, expect to make a decision by year's end on whether to pursue a transaction, the people said.
Disney first reached out to 21st Century Fox about a possible deal several weeks ago, but the talks cooled after the two sides couldn't agree on price, among other issues, people familiar with the matter have said.
Once news of those initial talks surfaced, other potential acquirers began emerging. Comcast, Sony Corp.'s entertainment unit, and Verizon Communications Inc., are among firms that have expressed various levels of interest, the people familiar with the situation say. The extent of discussions with Sony and Verizon is unclear. A top Verizon executive last week played down the need for the company to do a big content acquisition.
Disney and Comcast are in active talks with 21st Century Fox. It is possible the talks could fall through and a deal won't be reached.
21st Century Fox and Wall Street Journal-parent News Corp share common ownership.
The assets in play would give a buyer exposure to growth in international markets as the U.S. pay-TV industry reaches maturity.
With the Twentieth Century Fox studio, they would also get a premier Hollywood content factory and strengthen their position as media consumption shifts to digital platforms.
Also on the table in some of the discussions is Fox's 30% stake in streaming service Hulu. Disney and Comcast each also own 30% of the company, so they could consolidate control by buying out Fox's stake. Fox's regional sports networks could also be sold off, the people familiar with the situation say.
The Fox deal talks are happening as another big media deal, AT&T Inc.'s proposed takeover of Time Warner Inc., is headed for court. The Justice Department has sued to block the transaction, arguing it will reduce competition and harm consumers. Some industry observers thought that any major media deal-making would be on hold as companies wait to see the result of that litigation.
A sale would mark a significant turn for 21st Century Fox, which has long been viewed as a potential buyer in the media industry, not a seller. Media companies across the board are considering new business models and strategic options as they confront a rapidly changing landscape, with consumers cutting the cable TV cord, big programming distributors flexing their muscles, and advertising revenue growth uncertain.
The remaining elements of Mr. Murdoch's entertainment empire would be much smaller if an asset sale is completed.
But the entity would likely include some engines of growth. In the September quarter, results at 21st Century Fox were driven by the cable network group including Fox News and sports network FS1, which posted a 9% increase in operating income before depreciation and amortization. Revenue from monthly pay TV subscription fees continues to grow, in part because of higher prices.
Meanwhile, operating profit at Twentieth Century Fox fell 18% from a year earlier, as last year's results were boosted by licensing deals.
Overall, Fox's profit in the September period rose 4% to $855 million. Revenue rose 7.6% to $7 billion.
Write to Dana Mattioli at dana.mattioli@wsj.com and Amol Sharma at amol.sharma@wsj.com
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