CDN Wrap: Streaming Media Leftovers

Written by Ryan Lawler

Monday, September 29. 2008 at 05:55 PM EDT 1 comment

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While some industry execs at Streaming Media West were busy reviewing term sheets and discussing the merits of peer-to-peer (P2P) for video distribution, still others were busy making news.

Mirror Image moves up the stack
One of the more interesting announcements to come out of the show was from Mirror Image Internet Inc. , which added a media management platform to its suite of services.

By adding media management, Mirror Image is following Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM) in moving up the stack. While some companies see the addition of new services as an opportunity to increase revenues and provide a better experience to media customers, there are others -- like Limelight Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: LLNW) and Highwinds Network Group Inc. , for instance -- that prefer to stick to their core competency of delivering bits and allow partners to handle management and advertising.

The new platform -- which can handle everything from ingest to transcoding to advertising integration to advanced reporting and analytics -- will help the company add more to its service portfolio. But it also allows Mirror Image to offer up its services against standalone offerings from companies like thePlatform Inc. , ExtendMedia Inc. , and the like.

"This is a natural evolution for us," says Jim Hart, Mirror Image's vice president of sales and marketing. "We were looking to expand our services offerings and become more sticky to our customers."

Digital Fountain shifts gears
Digital Fountain , which had until recently offered up content delivery services based on its own proprietary video technology and Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN)'s EC2 Web services, has announced a change in its business plan.

According to Jim Campbell, director of marketing at Digital Fountain, the company is opening up its technology and allowing customers to use any CDN. "This way, they don't have to add an additional CDN to use our services," Campbell says.

The new strategy will put Digital Fountain in competition with companies like Vusion Inc. and Move Networks Inc. , which also provide streaming video technology that optimizes the viewer experience.

Kontiki focusing on the enterprise
With the release of the newest version of its file distribution technology, P2P technology firm Kontiki signaled a slight shift in focus towards the enterprise market. 

Kontiki has always served both media firms and enterprise customers. But the new features of its Delivery Management system, such as enhanced security and deep delete capabilities, are targeted at customers like Charles Schwab and Ernst & Young.

Despite the focus on enterprise customers, Kontiki vice president of marketing Bill Wishon says, the company will still support media customers such as U.K. broadcasters the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) or BSkyB Ltd. (NYSE, London: BSY).

Abacast buys Tukati
Live P2P-based CDN Abacast Inc. announced that it purchased long-time partner Tukati, which will allow the company to offer peer-assisted live and on-demand video delivery.

While no physical assets changed hands, Abacast got some new talent in the deal and some patent-pending intellectual property that should shore up its portfolio, according to Abacast CEO Mike King.

Highwinds partners with Octoshape
By partnering with Octoshape, Highwinds Network Group Inc. joined the growing number of CDNs interested in offering live streaming services. The deal, which came about due to a "customer requirement," according to vice president of marketing Mark Hayes, gives Highwinds the ability to offer live video streaming via P2P.

Octoshape also has a partnership with CDNetworks Co. Ltd. , and was used in conjunction with the Korea-based CDN for delivery of the Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS)'s delivery of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.