14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Azure is one of the products that Netherlands-based startup Crumbtag has adopted to become more efficient when it comes to targeting its customers’ online advertising.
Choosing Microsoft’s platform Crumbtag has adopted a platform that will deliver cost-effective processing power and agile scalability.
The company made the move to Windows Azure as it came up with a new idea of Internet ad placement, one that was based on analyzing web visitor behavior in real time, and which involved massive data-processing capability.
Microsoft’s product provides the company with the ability to scale processing power and storage on demand, to serve very large customers, and to deliver more competitive rates for online advertising.
“Because we are not spending millions on IT infrastructure, we can pass those savings on to customers,” said Crumbtag Founder and CEO Jan Kopmels.
“As a small startup, we’ve been able to compete successfully for multinational customers and also demonstrate to them that we use cutting-edge technology.”
Using Microsoft’s solution Crumbtag has saved $10 million (U.S.) in on-premises infrastructure, Kopmels estimates.
Advertising companies usually take advantage of cookies to match ads to users’ interests. However, since these cookies raised various privacy concerns lately, many countries decided to outlaw them.
Another issue with cookies is the fact that they are deposited covertly on a user’s computer during website visits and cannot be stored centrally for analysis.
Kopmels thought that he could capture user behavior and process it, thus being capable to serve ads without having to rely on cookies.
Kopmels launched Crumbtag in 2009, and has been working on the development of technology for the ad-placement application since. He also realized that his small company would have to pay millions on datacenter infrastructure to be able to process the info.
Since he had already worked with Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 data management software, Kopmels decided to adopt Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform.
“We looked briefly at Amazon cloud solutions but felt they were too immature,” Kopmels said. “Plus, we were a committed user of Microsoft technology.”
He needed only six weeks to move the application to Windows Azure. “For an experienced .NET developer, moving to Windows Azure is a piece of cake,” Kopmels said.