Sony Corp. of America is getting into the cloud storage business with its newest Los Angeles subsidiary.
Sony Media Cloud Services launched Wednesday as an online platform for filmmakers and television broadcasters to store and share their large and complex media files.
The 80-person subsidiary will work out of the Sony Pictures Studio lot in Culver City.
“We deliberately put ourselves on the Sony Pictures lot,” said Naomi Climer, president of Sony Media Cloud Services. “It’s great to have access to that many creative people working across movies, television, post production and effects.”
The subsidiary has developed software called Ci that filmmakers can use for storage, organization, sharing and editing of their media. Subscriptions to the software-as-a-service are sold on a sliding scale.
In addition to Sony Pictures, the company has also signed NBCUniversal as a client.
Climer said that the company supports most media files, but could eventually target other industries, such as music. It could also eventually target the consumer market, such as film students or self-employed creative types.
Sony Media Cloud Services does have some competition in the space. The most direct competitor is Hollywood-based Gobbler, which has targeted creative industries by integrating with popular video and sound editing products. Consumer products such as DropBox and enterprise services such as Box also serve some of the same needs.
Climer said Sony’s product was built to handle large video files. It was also built with security in mind so the latest “Spider Man” film won’t leak before it opens in theaters.
“Generally studios and creative professionals have content that they really don’t want to have in the wrong hands at the wrong time,” she said. “Security is something that we’ve put a lot of thought into. Generally speaking there isn’t that type of demand on the consumer level.”
