Media 100 and Globix Team for the Enterprise

On Tuesday, Media 100 (www.media100.com) and Globix ( www.globix.com) announced a partnership to target enterprise customers. Media 100 is offering users of its Cleaner Live software, the option to buy hosting and delivery from Globix. According to Michael Moskowitz, general manager of Globix, the deal enables customers to deliver their streams to a worldwide audience, at a low price point.

Moskowitz said pricing for the Globix streaming services starts at $250 for an entry level webcast. He did stress that the price will go up depending on the number of users and streams.

For Media 100, this is its first move into the enterprise space. In fact, the company just started its enterprise division, consisting of just one person: Mike Sabello, the VP of enterprise solutions. Still, Sabello sees this as a growth opportunity. ¡°We see the enterprise beginning to consume with webcasts first,¡± said Sabello, ¡°because it¡¯s easier to do. It¡¯s not about professional video creation as much as communications.¡±

Sabello said that it has made webcasting ¡°foolproof¡± but was still missing a piece of the puzzle. ¡°To do a webcast you needed a service provider because your T1 only supports 5 or 7 viewers. So it became clear that we needed to establish a partnership with a complementary offering.¡± Thus the partnership with Globix.

Moskowitz also was bullish on enterprise streaming. "We think there's a legitimate opportunity in the enterprise," he said. "There's sustainable revenues."

Interestingly, Media 100 no longer handles services and will essentially count on Globix to handle production. The company acquired a webcasting company called 21st Century Media, which later became StreamRiver, which was going to offer a wide range of streaming services. But Sabella said that the company has dropped those plans. ¡°We wanted to renew the focus of our core mission which is making the best tools and technology to make streaming pervasive,¡± he said.

Moskowitz at Globix said that despite the low price point, it can still make money. ¡°We¡¯re not losing money on that,¡± he said. Moskowitz also pointed out that customers will be able to take advantage of its EarthCache content delivery system. In fact, Globix announced a deal with Network Appliance (www.netapp.com) on Wednesday to use its caching and storage technology in EarthCache.

"Enterprises are using streaming media to both increase the effectiveness of their communications and develop new revenue-generating services," said Amit Pandey, senior director of marketing for the content delivery business unit at Network Appliance. "But many enterprises don't want to build and manage their own distribution and delivery infrastructure. Globix is able to offer these customers a state-of-the-art streaming media distribution and delivery infrastructure that is turnkey and fully managed."

Moskowitz said some of his competitors ¡°hurt streaming media¡± because they advertise support for many thousands of concurrent viewers. In truth, he said, many webcasts never have more than one thousand simultaneous people, so customers may be disappointed when they see the small audience numbers. Globix, said Moskowitz, puts a cap on the number of simultaneous users (say 1,000) and if a customers streams above that number, Globix won¡¯t charge the customer. ¡°We want people to have a good experience with streaming and to come back,¡± he explained.

The deal between the two companies isn¡¯t exclusive. Sabella at Media 100 said Cleaner Live customers are free to use whatever production or hosting that they want, but naturally, Globix is the company¡¯s main referral now. ¡°We¡¯ve done research and our feeling is that Globix can offer the best webcasting service anywhere,¡± he said.

In order to get customers and Media 100 is putting up a website at (www.CleanerLive.com.com), to sign up customers.