Spanish Point becomes Microsoft partner of the year

Aisling Curtis, Microsoft and Donal Cullen, Spanish Point Technologies: the music technologies company has been selected as Microsoft Ireland Country Partner of the Year

Spanish Point Technologies has been selected as Microsoft Ireland’s country partner of the year.

“This is very, very valuable to us,” said Donal Cullen, Spanish Point’s chief executive. “It proves we’re on the right track.”

Spanish Point Technologies was formed in 2005 and began looking at music technologies in 2007. The firm is based in Dublin and employs about 60 people. This is the second time that it has been named country partner of the year.

The company has also been named as a top ten partner in the Western European Region for Azure Advanced Data Services.

Aisling Curtis, commercial director at Microsoft, said: “They’re on the cutting edge. It’s really significant for a small company and allows them to have impact worldwide. We only choose partners who are transforming or disrupting their industry.”

The company was selected on the back of its work in the music industry. Spanish Point has unique intellectual property that identifies a piece of music and links it to its original creator. This makes it easier for artists to get paid royalties for their work.

“They can use our software to help identify their property,” Cullen said.

“This addresses a core problem in identifying songs. It removes some potential jeopardy on the part of companies if they have songs in their catalogue that they can’t identify, and it speeds up the process so that artists can get paid quicker.”

Spanish Point has been working with the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers to upgrade global information systems on the International Standard Musical Works Codes (ISWC). The solution created by Spanish Point has enabled music copyright societies to successfully cope with the challenge of digitally identifying music.

ISWC systems plays a key role in the successful functioning of the digital music market, and in turn allows creators to get efficiently and fairly paid for their work.

“In the music industry, technology became a problem for artists, but now we have the opportunity to solve the problem through technology. That’s the core message,” Cullen said.

As well as its work in the music industry, Spanish Point has also helped to digitally transform several major organisations including Prudential and ESB Networks.