EidosMedia customers focused on mobile working and new tools for distributed authoring and editing at their annual gathering in Milan.

Chief executive Christian Pelanconi said the meeting was the biggest yet with guests and attendees from across the world. "We were delighted to see so many people," he said.

The annual customer meeting is a 'shop window' keeping users up to date with latest developments from the company's engineering teams, with customers also sharing news of the innovative and often exciting operations they are building using Eidosmedia technologies.

Among these was Tom Betts of the Financial Times, who explained the thinking behind FT's highly successful data-driven subscription-building model, while media guru Mario Garcia revealed the secrets of successful storytelling in the age of mobile media.

"This was also an opportunity to update our customers on what we are doing and where we are going," said EidosMedia chief marketing officer Massimo Barsotti. "There was particular focus on tools for mobile working - the Swing family of mobile apps continue to add features and functions and there were some impressive demos showing their power and scope."

Third-party AI and machine learning aids are increasingly available online for enhancing published content with services such as auto-tagging and instant summaries. Many attendees are already exploring this area and there was great interest in the demo of Open-I, a new tool that allows authors to connect to such services from inside their EidosMedia workspaces. The delegates also heard about new customer services, including the training academy and 'testing as a service' initiative.

A survey at the end of the event confirmed that participants found it a successful formula with significant benefits in terms of information exchange and networking.