Consolidation in the Streaming Media Sectors

Juniper Acquires Ankeena

Less than 2 years after coming out of stealth mode, Ankeena announced it had been acquired by Juniper Networks. I followed Ankeena (formerly Nokeena) with interest over a number of months; its technology was designed to handle and deliver multiple adaptive bitrate (ABR) protocols all from a single source file. 

While Juniper has yet to integrate the ABR technologies into its core routers, the acquisition allows Juniper to continue to play in the streaming and ABR space with the tightly integrated, scalable media solution found in the Media Flow technology. 

A few months after the acquisition, I wrote an analysis white paper regarding the Media Flow Controller, the first in the Transitions in Technology series. It appears Juniper is moving ahead with its media delivery strategy, complemented by its VXA hardware platform purpose-built around the Media Flow technology.

KIT Acquires Multicast Media

This acquisition is also covered in detail in the “Going Meta” article, but what’s discussed there is only half the story. 

For KIT, a company that has been on a buying spree, Multicast Media offered a way to establish a geographic foothold in the U.S. and North American markets. It also offered a way to approach a highly lucrative, long-form content market: houses of worship. Multicast Media had a sizable presence in this market, which pushes out hour-long live events, resulting in a spike in traffic during traditionally low-bandwidth consumption times on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Motorola Acquires Zecter

Like the Akamai acquisition of Velocitude, Motorola’s acquisition of mobile cloud computing company 

Zecter allows it to provide cloud-based services to mobile devices. 

As a handset manufacturer, though, it’s an interesting play in that Motorola could provide a competitive service offering to leverage an existing relationship with mobile service providers, allowing the service providers to jointly offer premium data services that they are currently required to do individually. 

Motorola has stated that it will integrate Zecter’s ZumoDrive cloud-based storage into the MOTOBLUR, the Android add-on that Motorola offers with its Android phones. ZumoDrive currently works on all iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod touch) as well as Android and the HP Palm WebOS mobile platform.

Beyond just cloud-based storage, though, Zecter’s other product, ZumoCast, puts Motorola squarely in the streaming media delivery game. Reports state that the ZumoCast software will be suspended briefly to allow for enhancements, some of which may be geared toward improving the iOS streaming experience.