The 2008 Streaming Media All-Stars

Sponsored by

Andrew Olson, Senior Vice President, Comcast Interactive Media
Chief Operating Officer, The Platform

"A real innovator and champion for the industry"—SM All-Star Nomination

Proudest achievements:
• Being a part of the strategic team that gave birth to thePlatform.
• That thePlatform survived and eventually thrived through the downturn of 2001/2002 by treating our employees with honesty and respect.
• Building thePlatform into a market-leading technology platform that was purchased by Comcast, and is now becoming a core piece of both the internet and cable infrastructure for the world's largest cable company .
• My "Digital Media 101" article series that was published in Streaming magazine back in 2002 and 2003. I've gotten many emails over the years saying that the articles helped people move their businesses forward by helping them grasp not only the technology itself, but also how digital media affects their business model.

Blog: http://saint-somewhere.typepad.com

Biggest change over the last 10 years:
What's commonplace today looked like science fiction only a decade ago—we've gone from a blurry picture on your PC to great looking video streaming to a phone in a moving car, and evolved from Napster to Fancast.com ... what hasn't changed?

Biggest challenge facing the industry:
"There's an old saying from a Harvard Business School professor: "Are you in the railroad business, or the transportation business?" I think that video content owners are trying to think creatively, and I hope that continues. If content owners try to protect the status quo too much, we could see a decrease in high quality content and value destruction, rather than creation, throughout the value chain."

Neal Page, CEO & Founder, Inlet Technologies

"Neal made his name with his hardware advances, but he's far more than just a technological wiz. Everything he does is done with an eye toward helping the entire industry grow.."—SM All-Star Nomination

Proudest achievements:
• Pioneering work developing "grandfather" technologies of streaming over IP networks back in 1990–1993. I was privileged to work with really smart colleagues at Sun Microsystems (including Inlet’s CTO Scott Labrozzi), developing hardware compression and software decompression.
• Starting Osprey Technologies. While we failed miserably at ISDN- and modem-based video conferencing, our vision and commitment to IP delivery of video using software playback, i.e. streaming, was what made Osprey successful.
• Partnerships with RealNetworks and Microsoft at the same time. We not only helped RealNetworks launch RealVideo, but we also developed the first live streaming card for digital video sources in collaboration with Microsoft.
• Maintaining a common team of the best and brightest engineers and business colleagues for over a decade. I still can’t figure out why they stick with me, but we do some awesome things with digital media, and that is just really cool.
• Starting Inlet Technologies at the right time to take a streaming into the mainstream, making it as ubiquitous as traditional television. Stay tuned…

Blog: www.inlethd.com/blog

Next big thing:
"Both my company and myself remain dedicated to advancing the streaming industry. We are working on products, technologies and solutions that will seamlessly integrate streaming into the infrastructure that delivers new media over new networks."

Biggest change over the last 10 years:
"The biggest change has been the transition away from a postage stamp novelty to an experience that is fundamentally changing the way people consume media. Streaming is a disruptive foundation technology, combined with broadband IP connectivity that is changing the rules for delivering and consuming content."

Biggest challenge facing the industry
"In order for streaming to become as dependable as television, our industry must take a serious step up in delivering quality, reliability, and optimizations oriented towards the consumer. I’m not talking just the encoder, decoder, user interface or other component. I’m talking about the entire food chain from "glass to glass" to make the experience for the consumer perfect for their network and device. This requires our industry to expand our solution sets far beyond our traditional product offerings, and provide innovations that transparently work within the business of new media, not just the technology of streaming."

Patty Perkins, VP and Special Projects Manager, Wachovia

"Patty’s done incredibly interesting things at Wachovia, and she’s helped the industry see just how good enterprise video can be."—SM All-Star Nomination

Proudest achievements:
• Managed successful enterprise rollout in 2008 for My V-Net desktop video on demand at Wachovia.
• Managed successful pilot program for desktop video at Wachovia.
• Successful design/implementation in 1999 of interactive distance learning via satellite at First Union National Bank.
• Spoke on and moderated multiple panels on distance education and enterprise video at Streaming Media and other conferences.

Biggest change over the last 10 years:
"For Wachovia (and most large enterprises) it’s been the change in mind-set about the value of streaming and on-demand media for use in communications, employee engagement, and training."

Greg Pulier, CTO and Founder, IVT, Inc.

"Greg has been able to successfully predict industry trends for more than a decade."—SM All-Star Nomination

Proudest achievements:
• Creation and Deployment of the first Video Based Training System For all U.S. Toyota Dealerships. This system was used to train all U.S. dealers using centrally managed interactive video infant webcasting products.
• Launching IVT MediaPlatform, the world’s first industrial-strength enterprise class webcasting software system. We were the first to recognize the need for more than simple tools