Olswang's international technology and media team, hubbed out of London and Singapore, advised long-standing client Microsoft on over 100 content licensing deals with some of the world's biggest newspapers, publishers and content platforms, from London to Sydney and twenty other territories in between.
Olswang worked in close collaboration with Microsoft's Law and Corporate Affairs team throughout the project, also supporting the business development, programme management, advertising & online, and editorial teams at Microsoft. The vast project demanded a modern and pragmatic approach from all the teams involved to handle the large number of content providers, the breadth of the territories involved and the cutting-edge aspects of digital content exploitation, all within the time constraints of a tight global 'go live' deadline. Olswang tailored its services by adopting an alternative fee model, giving Microsoft increased visibility of costs, and by providing a consistent approach right across all times zones.
Delivering content to more than 425 million people in over 50 countries around the world each month, the newly rebuilt MSN platform combines premium content from the world's leading media outlets with personalised productivity tools. Launched in September, the new platform was re-designed with a mobile-first cloud-first approach, tackling the need for cross-device synchronisation of information and personalised settings. The new MSN service, which includes the rebranded Bing apps, provides a consistent experience across all user devices and integrates Microsoft's other consumer-facing cloud services - such as Outlook.com, OneNote and OneDrive.
Clive Gringras, Partner and Head of Technology at Olswang: "It was a wonderful feeling on 1 October when the Olswang team was able to plug MSN into our browsers and see the culmination of ten months' hard work in delivering Microsoft's content strategy worldwide and supporting the launch of the rich MSN offering."
Lesley Kyd-Rebenburg, Lead Attorney for Consumer at Microsoft: "Olswang worked as an extension of our in-house team during this project, understanding the technology behind the cloud and digital content, supporting our business strategy and bringing a very commercial approach to the table. We are thankful for the seamless and constant support which Olswang have provided across the many territories involved."
The cross-border Olswang team was Partners Clive Gringras and Elle Todd and associates Melanie Shefford, Matt Pollins, Matthew Hunter, Daniel Jung, Adam Wright and Chris Patey.
