A 1950’s style drive in movie theatre is open for business after Zespri International got rid of its physical servers and transformed the extra space created. The Mt Maunganui based company, one of New Zealand’s leading exporters, has migrated 95 per cent of its global computer infrastructure successfully to Microsoft Azure.

Zespri’s global manager of information systems, Andrew Goodin, says migrating the majority of the global SAP platform and other applications to Microsoft Azure means Zespri can meet the growing IT demands of its business. No longer requiring physical servers to store information, Zespri worked with Microsoft and Y&R to do something out of the ordinary.

“After moving to Azure, we had the opportunity to refurbish an old, tired, windowless room into a unique space for staff to take a break or have a meeting. Microsoft has fitted the room with a Smart TV so it works as both a high-tech meeting room and breakout area,” says Goodin.

The 1950’s drive-in movie theatre theme evolved from a ‘dragons-den’ style pitch process where Zespri employees were put into teams to come up with and present ideas to a panel of judges. The winning team then had a workshop with Y&R’s production team in Auckland to finalise the idea, look and feel of the room.

See video of the Server Room Reboot project below: