Archive for August, 2009:
The Netherlands: digital media hub
0 Comments | This entry was posted on Aug 04 2009
Although I am not a chauvinist, I want to share some insights about the Netherlands and why Dutch companies are influential, even though we are a tiny country.
Dutch people speak two, three, sometimes four or even five languages. We are a very open society and we have always been internationally oriented, both culturally and trade-wise. We are not that chauvinistic and are open to do business with anyone. As long as you pay :-)
We happen to sit on top op the world’s largest internet hub: the Amsterdam Internet Exchange. Many gigabits per second of global Internet traffic flows through the Netherlands.
With over 80% we have the highest broadband penetration in the world. Fast broadband! Average households get 6 to 20Mbps. Early adopters get up to 100Mbps broadband. Broadband consumption is extremely high. The 2008 Olympics live streams were watched (per capita) 10x as much by Dutch people compared to the US market.
Next to the USA and the UK, the Netherlands are number three in content formats and export. Endemol and Eyeworks (we work for both) are famous for their shows like Big Brother, Deal or no Deal, Starmaker, Extreme Makeover and hundreds other global broadcasted formats. The Hilversum Media Park is the largest media hub in the world, where broadcasters, studios, producers, and hundreds facilitating companies are located.
Forget wooden shoes, windmills and tourism. Similar to the Rotterdam Harbour (the largest harbour in the world), the Netherlands are a significant accelerator for digital media services.
To improve partnering, form better value chains and do more international export, Dutch companies teamed up in the Dutch Media Hub. The hub is supported by the Secretary of Economic Affairs, who specifically mentioned Jet Stream as one of the key examples of successful, innovative exporting companies in the digital media industry.
Although I am not a chauvinist, I want to share some insights about the Netherlands and why Dutch companies are influential, even though we are a tiny country.
Dutch people speak two, three, sometimes four or even five languages. We are a very open society and we have always been internationally oriented, both culturally and trade-wise. We are are open to do business with anyone. As long as you pay :-)
We tend do do things lean and mean: innovative, efficient to the bone, so we can be competitive, even though salaries and taxes are higher than in most other countries.
We happen to sit on top op the world’s largest internet hub: the Amsterdam Internet Exchange. Many gigabits per second of global Internet traffic flow through the Netherlands.
There is no European market
0 Comments | This entry was posted on Aug 04 2009
U.S. based CDNs often ten to think that they can enter the European market by having an office in London, Paris or Amsterdam.
Although there is a European Union, without borders, with free economics and a single currency, there is no single market like there is in the U.S.A.
There are over 25 countries and languages in Europe. You will encounter cultural and language barriers. Opening an office in London also means a geographical barrier.
In southern countries, business is done mostly via personal relations. You need to personally meet, drink, eat and laugh. And again and again. And then they may want to deal with you. Business in Eastern Europe is hard. They don’t trust you. And you should not trust them. Let them pay in advance. In other countries, business is very strict. Polish your shoes if you want to do business in Germany. Don’t small-talk too long.
English people can be very rude. They don’t say their name when they call you. “I need a quote, now!”. The French, oh the French are so chauvinistic. They even have their own words for internet protocols. They don’t do business outside France. They still think that France is the center of the world. Like many people from the U.S.A. still think they are the center of the world.
It is changing though. A younger generation grows up with the Internet. And English is the Internet language. It surprises me how well many international customers speak English, especially Italians and Spanish customers.
We have the luck of being in the Netherlands. Dutch people speak two, three, sometimes four or even five languages. We are a very open society and we have always been internationally oriented, both culturally and trade-wise. We are not that chauvinistic and are open to do business with anyone. As long as you pay.
The European market is also dividid for content, both culturally and by language. Shows who are extremely popular in Germany will never work in the UK, even if they were produced locally with local stars in their native language. The Germans don’t get English jokes and the English don’t get German jokes. Really.
Even if you find a content format that works in multiple countries, you have the language barrier. You have to produce content in multiple languages. Some countries require native spoken content. Other countries want dubbed content. And other countries prefer subtitled content. If you do this wrong, no one will watch your content.
Even pan-European broadcasters like MTV and Discovery have custom channels per country or per language region. 95% of all broadcasters are focussed on just one country or one language region.
There is no pan-European advertisement industry. Take the product overview of giants such as Unilever or Proctor & Gamble, and you wil see that the very same toothpaste product has many different names throughout Europe. Heck, we had Dove soap and Dove chocolat.
So there is no European market. If traffic stays for 90% within your own country, why sign up with a global CDN? Why not work together with a regional player?
In Europe there are a lot of regional streaming providers who do local business only. Over 90% of their business is in their own country. Over 90% of their traffic stays within their own country, even though they claim to be a significant European player.
The problem is that these small players can’t innovate fast enough. They can’t compete on support, technology, infrastructure or price.
As far as I know, our own StreamZilla service is the only CDN that has managed to capture a true European market. Over two thirds of our customers (and our traffic) comes from EU countries. We even managed to become dominant in some markets. Only twenty per cent comes from our home country the Netherlands. And about ten percent is delivered to the U.S.A, South America and the rest of the world. Where we have excellent performance too, by the way: A+ status for each streaming protocol.
StreamZilla has grown large enough to compete with larger, USA based CDN’s. We do offer better customer support. Our performance in Europe is better than most global CDN’s can offer. We have been able to invest in technology. And our rates are competitive.
This is also an opportunity for ISP’s. There is no EU market. Imagine you are a content owner. Why sign up with a global CDN if you can do direct business with an operator who controls both access and distribution in the target market?
Build a CDN and do business in your own country, in your own language, in your own cultural way.
So is this a threat to StreamZilla? Yes and no. We may lose some content owners when they can do direct business with ISP’s. But the content owners still need someone to tie the CDN’s together: to act as an overflow platform, to act as an overlay platform.
So is this a threat to local streaming operators? Yes and no. They will lose the innovation race. StreamZilla already proposed some that they stop doing their CDN part and focus instead on value added services: encoding, asset management, translation services, portal services, custom video players. In some markets this turned into a very successful partnership.
So is this a threat to the global CDN’s? Yes. Sorry!
U.S. based CDN’s often tend to think that they can enter the European market by having an office in London, Paris or Amsterdam.
Although there is a European Union, without borders, with free economics and a single currency, there is no single market like there is in the U.S.A.
There are over 25 countries and even more languages in Europe. You will encounter cultural and language barriers. Opening an office in London also means a geographical barrier.
Why are telecom operators deploying CDNs?
0 Comments | This entry was posted on Aug 04 2009
Telecom operators have a four-way strategy to own an on-net CDN. On-net CDNs offer deeper network penetration with better QoS and larger capacity. The CDNs that we deploy support all popular delivery technologies for the web, mobile and IPTV. This means that the telecom operators can:
- optimize on-net traffic flow, reduce backbone and peering load
- host and deliver on-net web, mobile and IPTV services
- sell CDN resources to content owners
- Take back the distribution role in the value chain
External CDNs could only have addressed number 3 in this list. Read more »
StreamZilla
0 Comments | This entry was posted on Aug 04 2009
2003. Some potential customers asked for a demo setup of our technology. So we built a small streaming platform to demo our innovative features. The customers liked the service so much that they asked us to host their streams. They did not want to go through the hassle of setting up and managing their own servers.
At the same time I wondered why no one had tried to offer a professional streaming service in western Europe. Sure, there were some offerings, but their technology was weak, they had no focus, no good product portfolio. And their marketing was horrible.
So we decided to launch a streaming service. Since our focus is on strategy and software development we chose to outsource the hosting. We found some hosting partners, setup our software.
We are not a sales driven company. I did not want to hire sales staff. Too expensive. I also did not want my people to spend a lot of time with customers on the phone. So I had to to think of a smart way. E-commerce. We took our time to think of 6 streaming packages and a good pricing policy. We put up a 3-pages website with all packages and prices on the front page (to save on sales), a second page with tech specs (so we could save on support) and a contact page.
Our rates were fair, our services offered support for all popular streaming technologies, we had good reporting features and the service was transparent.
Within a few months we sold more accounts than we had imagined. The largest online publisher in the Netherlands became our customer. Within a year we were the largest streaming provider in the Netherlands. Actually, StreamZilla made more profit than our consulting services.
Today, StreamZilla is the leading European streaming CDN. We still stick to the basic rules: full featured service, fair rates, full transparency and e-commerce. And focus. Although StreamZilla is still not our core activity, it contributed to our growth, profitability and international presence.
And we learned a lot. We managed to get a competitive service in Europe with a staff that is significantly smaller than that of any serious competitor. Yet customers claim that our uptime and support are much better. We know how to get a CDN as lean and mean and profitable as possible.
I think most CDN’s can learn from that. And all our knowledge was put back into our software. More automation. Self service. Transparency. Our customers who license our CDN software directly benefit from that experience.
2003. Some potential customers asked for a demo setup of our technology. So we built a small streaming platform to demo our innovative features. The customers liked the service so much that they asked us to host their streams. They did not want to go through the hassle of setting up and managing their own servers.
At the same time I wondered why no one had tried to offer a professional streaming service in western Europe. Sure, there were some offerings, but their technology was weak, they had no focus, no good product portfolio. And their marketing was horrible.
So we decided to launch a streaming service. Since our focus is on strategy and software development we chose to outsource the hosting. We found some hosting partners, setup our software.
Jet Stream BV
0 Comments | This entry was posted on Aug 04 2009
In 2002 I started Jet Stream BV. Telecom Operators started to lose their control over the distribution role in the value chain. Hosting providers and CDN’s were moving in.
I knew I had the knowledge and some nice technologies to fill in the gap that the operators left wide open. I wanted to help the telecom operators to take back control. I started to redesign, rewrite and improve the basic technologies I had needed for my own large webcast projects in the past years.
The parallelization technology was dubbed XL Media Server. The log processing tool was dubbed StreamStat. I started to license these technologies to universities, ISP’s, broadcasters and digital service providers.
The DotCom bubble had just burst. Investors had invested too much in potential competitors and pulled their plug. I managed to start the company without investors or loans. Jet Stream was break even in the first year. And has been every year since then.
The company started small and grew along with the customers. Growing this way does not give the head start that most companies want, but it gives 100% freedom. Besides, we were ahead of all competitors. We were making money and we were growing fast.
In the pioneer years we have built many advanced streaming media farms. Much more advanced than other platforms. Our custoers were first with mobile streaming, HD streaming, professional reporting. We have been involved in many vertical projects as well, where we focussed on distribution and our partners focussed on transcoding, media asset management, playout, DRM, micro-payment and workflow. We were also involved in many new projects such as DVB-H.
Our core activity was -and is- digital media distribution technology, projects and consulting. We primarily are a knowledge and vision company. To enable our customers digital distribution strategy we research and develop innovative technologies. Our core revenue model is software licensing.
Today, although we are still small in size (which IMHO is a benefit: lean and mean), Jet Stream is a dominant player in the BeNeLux and many other European countries. We help a lot of key customers to realize their digital media strategy. Since we are not tech geeks, but come from the production side, and have a strategy pitch, we are influential in decision making.
In 2002 I started Jet Stream BV. Telecom Operators started to lose their control over the distribution role in the value chain. Hosting providers and CDN’s were moving in.
I knew I had the experience, knowledge and some nice technologies to fill in the gap that the operators left wide open. I wanted to help the telecom operators to take back control. I started to redesign, rewrite and improve the basic technologies I had needed for my own large webcast projects in the past years.