Part 2: Outsourcing and the future of streaming

Why should a company outsource when it comes to finding streaming media solutions?
Streaming is a complex animal that require expertise across a variety of disciplines including video production, web production, and internetworking. Often times companies underestimate the complexities and try to deploy a solution themselves, which leads to long development and integration periods followed by growing pains.

Outsourcing streaming with a provider like Digital Pipe can be done very quickly and for a fraction of the cost. By offering a managed solution, we alleviate the responsibilities and headaches of ongoing management and maintenance as well.

How does a company determine its level of need for streaming media?
Companies must uncover the business critical needs of its employees. For example, financial institutions need to train employees on SEC regulations. Healthcare providers need to continually educate doctors and nurses on new equipment and procedures. Manufacturing companies need to continually provide safety training on plant floors. Tech companies need to attract and retain it talent with the help of company-paid technology training. These will be the applications that drive the need for the underlying streaming media technology.

What should a company do prior to picking a streaming media provider, what are the issues to address?
Attend some conferences and seminars to find out what people are saying about streaming. More importantly, talk to your peers in other companies that have had experience with the technology and get advice from them. I think the case for whether a company needs a streaming solution can easily be determined in a simple cost-benefit analysis. The real question is how do you best deploy a solution and keep it running.

And is the streaming media solution affected by the size of the company and its technological environment?
Yes. In order to foster a positive streaming experience, companies need to have the right technical environment to support the technology. In addition, companies really need to develop the business case and determine if the technology can improve their communications and operations processes and save them money over time. In general, the benefit of streaming is directly proportional to the size of the organization.

What do you see as the future of streaming media and its integration for everyday use at the corporate level?
I truly believe that streaming media will become as commonplace as email. As authoring tools become easier to use and are integrated with the Internet appliances we use in our daily lives, sending video will be easy to create and deliver. More robust networks and higher adoption of broadband connectivity will fuel its early acceleration and will in turn stimulate new applications and technologies. I think corporations are the real early adopters, mainly because they have the infrastructure already in place and a need for the technology. Entertainment and consumer-driven applications will come later as the Internet matures and a broadband world exists.