Special Sponsored Section: Executive Predictions

Bob Rizika, President and CEO, Blackwave
2010 will be a great year for broadband video. As connected devices proliferate and bandwidth costs drop, consumers will enjoy an array of choices for how and where to experience the video entertainment they love. Their own movies will be easier to capture and share across interconnected PC, wireless, and home entertainment platforms. And after much planning and anticipation, industry initiatives like cable's "TV Everywhere" and Hollywood's DECE consortium will guide innovative, easy-to-use managed services to market that provide consumers the experience they are looking for across multiple screens without compromising the economics of premium content production.

Support for this rising wave of "Any Screen, On Demand" consumer expectations will require changes in the approach to
video delivery infrastructure. We think 2010 will be remembered as "The Year of the Build". Facing increased costs associated with the traditional methods of storing, managing, and delivering the full library of video to consumers, many of the biggest content providers - not only MSOs and telcos, but also content owners and rights aggregators - will develop their own multi-POP content delivery networks to support converged Over-the-Top video services. And when they do, they will look to vendors who rely as much as possible on open, standards-based technology.

We believe that HTTP will be one of those standards embraced. As content-protection methods grow more secure, more systems will leverage HTTP as their preferred delivery protocol. HTTP delivery systems allow providers to support and scale delivery of their content to the largest possible audience at the lowest possible cost, regardless of platform.

John Shaw, Executive Vice President of Business Operations, VBrick Systems
2010 is shaping up to be a landmark year for the Enterprise IP Video industry. Exercising my powers of prognostication, I foresee five major market forces:

While enterprise spending will likely remain constrained, CIOs will introduce a few new applications that deliver rapid, organization-wide impact-without breaking the bank. Live and on-demand streaming is squarely on their radar screens.

As streaming media increasingly becomes recognized as a core communications technology, buyers will be unwilling to adopt the point solutions of the past. Vendors who make IP Video an integral part of unified communications-versus a standalone destination-will thrive in 2010.

Consolidation in the IP Video marketplace will accelerate. The current "musical chairs" in the videoconferencing industry will drive demand for other key pieces of the IP Video solution set. Companies that were able to gain strength during the 2009 downturn will go shopping ... and be pursued.

Early IP Video adopters were willing to endure the pain of assembling discordant product components. The more mainstream buyers of 2010 will demand end-to-end streaming solutions that easily integrate into their existing communications infrastructure.

Typically, broad-based adoption of a new technology results in greater standardization. The streaming media battles between Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and Google will create more technical heterogeneity in the market. Vendors who are able to shield this complexity from the end user will win.

To our customers, partners, and competitors, VBrick wishes an eventful 2010!

Dave Stoner, President and Chief Executive Officer, Viewcast
As the adoption of streaming media technology continues to accelerate, content providers are challenged to deliver rich media experiences that offer Internetcaliber interactivity and televisioncaliber broadcast quality and reliability. In difficult economic conditions, they must also look for opportunities to streamline their infrastructure outlay and derive greater revenue from their content - without compromising the quality of the end-user experience.

HTTP-based streaming is an evolving innovation that will yield significant benefits for content providers, while providing
consumers with better access to bandwidth-optimized, high definition content. Since HTTP-based streaming utilizes existing web server infrastructure, eliminating the need for separate, dedicated media servers, specialized software tools and associated hosting fees, it will ultimately enable content providers to lower operating costs, realize greater management efficiency, and scale infrastructure with greater flexibility.

Another opportunity for increased industry innovation in the coming year is ‘consumer aware' programming customization. Media management and delivery platforms that enable content providers to tag and manage content based on the associated metadata will facilitate intelligent, real-time advertisement insertion that maps to consumer demographics and viewing habits. This capability will drive increased revenue for content providers, while enabling them to tailor their programming based on viewers' interests.

‘Doing more with less' doesn't mean that we have to sacrifice operational agility, programming quality, or revenue - it requires that we make the best possible use of our content and technology infrastructure. Continued industry innovation will ensure that content providers of all sizes are well positioned to leverage the full value and utility of streaming media technology to advance their strategic objectives.

Dave Stubenvoll, CEO and Co-Founder, Wowza Media Systems
Your TV is not a TV. It's merely the biggest screen you own. I don't know who is responsible for that quote, but it's great. And accurate.

The greatest consequence of that statement, to me, is that the focus belongs on how consumers want to view media. Not how publishers want to deliver it.

That's a big statement. To date, Internet media has been defined by how the publisher wants to deliver. CDNs offer Windows Media and/or Flash delivery. Assuming that the proprietary platform and player is what is important.

That is changing. Now. Rapidly.

The iPhone is a perfect example. The iPhone is extremely popular and is responsible for more mobile web traffic than its market share should allow. Marketers covet its user demographic. As such, simultaneous delivery to desktop and iPhone has become a requirement for many media publishers. It's where the eyeballs are - wider audiences for entertainment, instruction and influence that businesses require.

What publishers cannot afford is a separate infrastructure for every "screen". Compared to the desktop, iPhone is still a very small audience and it's hard to justify the expense and complexity of additional infrastructure.

But that desire for eyeballs in a coveted demographic is strong enough that hundreds of publishers put a pre-release version of Wowza Media Server 2 Advanced into production. With fantastic results.

Now, the same Wowza infrastructure they used to deliver to Flash desktops is reaching the iPhone, Silverlight, QuickTime, set-top boxes and more. More eyeballs. Better business.

David Wadler, CEO and Founder, Twistage
In May, 2008, Dan Rayburn wrote, "The workflow for Internet based video is going to be the biggest problem the industry as a whole is going to face 24 months from now." The problem seems to have come sooner than expected.

Publishers have already begun to outgrow their initial video solutions, and face significant hurdles in upgrading. With disparate delivery solutions, coupled with the costly investment in deprecated infrastructure, publishers now need to take a holistic view of their video strategy. 2010 is the year that these companies will be able to reap the benefits of the next-generation video platform.

As we all know, video was a tremendous driver of growth for publishers and enterprises alike. But the market - and the products and platforms available - lacked the sophistication necessary for businesses to fully realize their ambitions. In many cases, companies had to make do with the choices they had available to them or sit out the video revolution.

Now, we begin a more evolutionary process, one of refinement. Processes that have become critical to markets will become streamlined. The result of these improvements will be Video Ecosystem 2.0. With more choices, greater flexibility, and tighter integrations that serve our specific needs, 2010 promises to be the year that publishers can expect to work with video on their own terms, rather than a vendor's. 2010 is the year we solve video workflow.

Ben Weinberger, CEO and Co-Founder, Digitalsmiths
2010 is going to be a big one. This is the year digital media companies will be able to bring true multiplatform distribution to consumers in a way that is both profitable and scalable.

"TV Everywhere" is a bold move in that direction, and a challenge to the industry at large. It has compelled those of us on the technology side of digital media analysis, operations and publishing to step up our game.

2010 will be the year that major studios and networks choose who will manage their libraries and help usher in a huge sea change for the cable, television, and film industries. I'm pleased to note that Digitalsmiths is a central player in that space, and this year we plan to expand our market share through our signature mixture of great technology and great client service.

Entitlement rights management is central to TV Everywhere and profitability. The media company that doesn't merely survive this transition, but thrives, will be the one that best harnesses premium, time-based metadata.

An advanced metadata management framework - or MetaFrame - is the key to solving the complex puzzle of when, where, how, and if a given piece of content can be streamed and monetized.

In other words, 2010 is the year of MetaFrame. Whoever unleashes the value, and implements the best technology first, will win - and their shareholders will reap the benefits.

I'm honored to be part of the elite group of thinkers and entrepreneurs who are taking digital entertainment to, as Buzz Lightyear might say, infinity and beyond.

Ron Yekutiel, Chairman and CEO, Kaltura
We will see continued commoditization of the video delivery space. With affordable HDTV-grade online delivery available to all, publishers' focus will shift from the delivery layer to the application layer. ‘Cookie cutter' stand-alone video management features will be replaced by highlycustomized functionalities and work-flows that are tightly integrated with other content management systems. Mass consumption of video will transcend beyond media and entertainment into other markets, such as enterprise, education, healthcare, government etc, where custom work flows and tight integration are paramount. These video management functionalities, along with their ancillary digital services, will be provided by large media companies and cloudcomputing vendors, whose economies of scale, availability, reliability, and marketing resources shall overpower today's dedicated video SaaS vendors. Alternatively, more publishers will opt to self-host the video management platform behind their firewall to allow for greater security, control, and flexibility. In both scenarios, the commoditized video delivery services (e.g. storage, backup, streaming, transcoding) shall be augmented by innovative high-margin digital services such as video search, metadata extraction & analysis, and syndication. As the most flexible platform to customize, extend, and integrate with third party platforms, and as the only video platform that enables self-hosting behind ones firewall or on the cloud, we believe Kaltura's open source online video platform will play a major role in driving and supporting these trends. Enhanced by a global developer community, and already adopted by more than 41,000 sites, Kaltura has the potential and momentum of becoming the ubiquitous online video platform.