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Archive for the ‘Value chain’ Category:

Horizontal or vertical

0 Comments | This entry was posted on Aug 06 2009

I get many questions whether CDN’s should be a horizontal or a vertical service.

I say horizontal. For a number or reasons:

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Business, ISP's, Value chain

Focus!

0 Comments | This entry was posted on Aug 05 2009

The CDN industry is still very young. It is an immature industry. Technology is advancing. New players enter the market and existing players keep changing their proposition. They are in trouble.

Lack of focus is killing. I’ve been around 15 years in this industry and I have seen so many companies come and go. Their problem was lack of focus.

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Business, Value chain

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.

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Business, Distribution, Logistics, Value chain, Video Working Group

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.

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Business, Distribution, ISP's, The Last Mile, Value chain

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:

  1. optimize on-net traffic flow, reduce backbone and peering load
  2. host and deliver on-net web, mobile and IPTV services
  3. sell CDN resources to content owners
  4. Take back the distribution role in the value chain

External CDNs could only have addressed number 3 in this list. Read more »

Business, Distribution, ISP's, Logistics, Technology, The Last Mile, Value chain, Video Working Group

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.

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Business, Value chain

Peer2Peer s*cks, here’s why

0 Comments | This entry was posted on Jul 31 2009

Peer2Peer (P2P) is sometimes proposed as an alternative for distributed content delivery. Some CDN’s are built upon P2P technology. P2P vendors, researchers and CDN’s claim that P2P lowers costs. It does. For the content owner. But it raises costs for the network owners. Significantly.

Basically the concept of P2P is that every client can redistribute content to other clients. As a content provider you don’t need to buy servers or traffic. Your audience distributes your content ‘for free’. Ingest the content into the network and let it flow. It is also hard to trace where content is hosted and ingested from. That is why P2P is so popular for (illegal) file sharing services.

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Distribution, Fiber to the Home, ISP's, Logistics, The Last Mile, Value chain

Digital Logistics

0 Comments | This entry was posted on Jul 30 2009

2002. Since I already had a background in distributed delivery, I dived deeper into the internet infrastructure, to come up with a smart distributed solution for mass-scale content delivery.

It involved a simple number of technologies I already had developed in operational or rudimentary form. Parallelized delivery servers as core and edge servers. A smart asset and live relay replication mechanism. A smart geo load balancing application. Some log processing scripts.

Technical stuff. But why and how does this work? Let’s compare this with Logistics. Read more »

Distribution, Fiber to the Home, ISP's, Logistics, The Last Mile, Value chain, Video Working Group
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