Online Video Industry Forecast 2012: Microsoft
[This sponsored article appears in the December 2011/January 2012 issue of Streaming Media magazine]
2011 continues the upward trend for online media consumption. For video, most online viewers watch over an hour of video a week. Its oft-forgotten cousin, audio, is doing phenomenally well through services like Pandora and Spotify. Finally, live video collaboration through services such as Skype grow ever more popular.
For 2012, three main areas of growth are likely to be the consumption of media on mobile devices, monetization models, and premium live and on-demand content. These three areas have some significant technical and economic challenges. It is up to technology companies like Microsoft to provide our customers and partners with platforms that enable them to focus on creating value to address these growth areas.
The Microsoft Media Platform is the centerpiece of our media strategy. It provides:
- Scalable, secure and economic delivery of assets using progressive download, traditional streaming and dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP,
- Content processing for multiple end-point devices including iOS,
- Advanced player frameworks for Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 and HTML5 client technologies,
- Instrumentation and analytics for monitoring and business insight,
- Orchestration for managing media workflow,
- Integration into monetization engines like online advertising.
Cloud computing technologies promise lower costs, extra capacity when needed and zero cost of entry. The Microsoft Media Platform fits well into the cloud model with the additional advantage of supporting private, hybrid and public cloud deployments.
2012 will be an exciting year for the streaming media industry. Microsoft will continue to be at the forefront of innovation in this space.
This article is Sponsored Content
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