It’s been awhile since I updated my list of companies connected to the content delivery market including vendors that offer CDN services, licensed and managed CDN platforms, transparent caching platforms and those carriers and telcos who are deploying these services. Since my last post on the subject, Akamai acquired Cotendo, Internap acquired Voxel, Technicolor sold off their video assets, XO Communications got into the market and other companies have come and gone.

This list is far from complete and I’m sure there are others I could include. For now, I’m not adding any P2P based services, mobile content delivery, commerce and advertising platforms or hosting providers that have pricing starting at $99 a month. When this list first started off, it was composed of just service based CDNs who offered video delivery and over time, the list has evolved to feature other technologies and platforms having to do with optimizing the delivery of web content.

While content delivery is a generic term and probably includes hundreds of vendors if you include all cloud based services, co-location companies, regional service providers, P2P networks and mobile platforms, I’ve tried to keep this list to vendors specifically tied to the delivery of video, be it as a service or platform for both On-net and Off-net applications.

But I do think this list needs to continue to expand so I am open to ideas and suggestions on adding new categories. I’m thinking of adding companies that offer FEO and DSA to the list as well, so I welcome you comments and suggestions. (To make the list easier to find on my blog, all you have to do is go to www.cdnlist.com for the latest update.)

CDN Service Providers

• 21ViaNet
• Accelia
• Activate.net (acquired by CMGI Oct. 1999)
  
• Abacast (has exited the video delivery business, focuses on radio streaming)
• Advection.net
• Akamai
• Amazon CloudFront
• BitGravity (acquired by Tata Communications Jan. 2011)
• Broadcast.com (acquired by Yahoo! April 1999)
• CacheFly
• Cable & Wireless (withdrew from the U.S. Nov. 2002, sold U.S. company to SAVVIS)
• ChinaCache
• Cidera (went out of buisness Jan. 2001, formerly named SkyCache)
• CDNetworks (exited the video delivery business in 2010, focuses on web acceleration)
• Cotendo (acquired by Akamai Nov. 2011)
• Digital Fountain (acquired by Qualcomm Feb. 2009)
• Digital Island (acquired by Cable & Wireless May 2001)
• EdgeCast
• EdgeStream (no real offering, vaporware)
• e-media (acquired by Streaming Media Corp. in 2002)
• Fastweb (acquired by 21ViaNet in Sept. 2012)
  
• Globix (chapter 11 Jan. 2002, hosting/media services sold to QTS Oct. 2006)
• Grid Networks (merged with GMS April 2009)
• Highwinds
• iBEAM (went chapter 11 Oct. 2011, assets acquired by Williams Communications)
• INTERVU (acquired by Akamai Feb. 2000)
• Itiva (went out of business sometime in 2010)
• itv.net (acquired by PopCast in 1999)
  
• Limelight Networks
• Microcast (went out of business sometime in 2000)
• Mirror Image
• NetDNA
• Octoshape
• Panther Express (acquired by CDNetworks Feb. 2009)
• PEER1
• Prime Networks
• Real Broadcast Network (closed down by RealNetworks Q1 2010)
• Sandpiper (acquired by Digital Island Oct. 1999)
• SAVVIS (exited the space by selling CDN assets to Level 3 Dec. 2006)
• Speedera (acquired by Akamai March 2005)
• st3 (went out of business Jan. 2002)
• Streaming Media Corp. (changed name to Nine Systems, acquired by Akamai Sept. 2006)
• StreamPipe (acquired by Ten-TV Feb. 2002, then re-sold to Loudeye Nov. 2002)
  
• SyncCast (acquired by Technicolor April 2007)
• Technicolor (video network sold to FCDE March 2011)
• Velocix (acquired by Alcaltel-Lucent July 2009, formerly called CacheLogic)
• VitalStream (acquired by Internap Feb. 2007)
• Voxel.net (acquired by Internap Jan. 2012)
• Vusion (went out of business May 2009)
• Windows Azure
• WorldStream (went out of business Aug. 2001)
  

Telcos/Carriers deploying & building CDNs (some deployments are only for internal use, others are selling it as a service, like Level 3 and AT&T)

• AT&T
• Bharti Airtel (partnered with Limelight)
• Bell (working with Limelight)
• Broadmedia
• BT
• Concentric Cloud Solutions (division of XO Communications, licensed Limelight’s CDN platform)
• Deutsche Telekom (partnered with EdgeCast)
• Global Crossing (reselling Limelight and EdgeCast)
• Internap (acquired VitalStream, acquired Voxel)
• Interoute (acquired Virtue Media Services)
• Korea Telecom
• KPN
• Level 3 (acquired CDN assets of SAVVIS, acquired Servecast)
• NaviSite (reselling EdgeCast)
• Ngenix
• NTT Communications
• Orange France Telecom
• Pacnet (licensed EdgeCast)
  
• PCCW
• Reliance Globalcom (partnered with Internap)
• SingTel
• Tata Communications (acquired BitGravity)
• TeliaSonera
• Telecom Argentina
• Telcom Italia
• Telecom Italia Sparkle (reselling CDNetworks)
• Telecom New Zealand (AAPT) (partnered with EdgeCast)
• Telefonica
• Telenor
• Telstra
• Telus (reselling EdgeCast)
• Verizon

CDN Management Platforms

• Adero (acquired by Intokmi Dec. 2000)
• Aflexi (acquired by OnApp August 2011)
• Alcatel-Lucent
• Ankeena (acquired by Juniper April 2010)
• Bandcon (acquired by Highwinds July 2010)
• Blackwave (acquired by Juniper Oct. 2010)
• Burst.com (shut down in 2002, turned focus to enforcing patents against Micrososft, Apple, Real)
• Broadpeak
• BNI Video (acquired by Cisco Oct. 2011)
• Cisco
• Conviva
• DigitalPipe (went out of business sometime in 2001)
• Ericsson
• eScene Networks (acquired by Intokmi June 2001)
• Fabrix.tv
• FastForward Networks (acquired by Intokmi Sept. 2000)
• Huawei
• Intokmi (acquired by Yahoo! Dec. 2002)
• Jet-Stream
• Move Networks (put assets up for sale June 2010)
• Solbox
• Volera (spinoff by Novell in 2001, closed down in 2003)
• XDN (formerly called 3Crowd)

Transparent Caching Platforms (An Overview Of Transparent Caching and Its Role In The CDN Market)

• Allot Communications
• ARA Networks
• Blue Coat (formerly named CacheFlow)
• BTI Systems
• Conversant
• Fortinet
• Huawei
• Juniper
• Oversi (acquired by Allot Communications Sept. 2012)
• PeerApp
• Qwilt
• Verivue (acquired by Akamai Nov. 2012)
• VidScale

If you think a current or former company should be added to any of these lists, I’m happy to hear suggestions in the comments section below.

If you had to pick one person that is the most outspoken advocate of Apple’s (APPL) still non-existent all-in-one Apple TV, it would have to be Piper Jaffray Wall Street analyst Gene Munster. For more than three years now, Gene’s been very vocal in predicting that Apple is getting ready to release an Apple TV set. The moment he says anything about the device, many people in the media make it into their lead story, even though to date, he’s yet to be right about any of his Apple TV predictions. While I don’t know Gene personally, and for all I know he’s one of the nicest guys in the world, I don’t understand why anyone listens to him when he’s been predicting the same thing, year after year, with no results to show for it.

When he predicted in June that Apple could sell 11M TV sets in the next 3-5 years, the media was all over it. Why? What credibility does he have? Anyone can predict something for many years and eventually might be right, but does that really matter? What info is Gene Munster putting out today that’s usable? I never went to college, I have no journalism courses or even writing classes under my belt and I don’t know what they teach journalists these days. But writers should be more focused on what is taking place today, not what might, could, or should happen 3-5 years from now because in nearly every case, what is predicted never comes true. I see more articles talking about Apple TV, a product that does not exist, as opposed to a device, like the Xbox 360, that actually has a real footprint, real user base and real revenue being generated.

In a previous note, Gene said that the size of the 2013 connected TV market is 110M units. I don’t know where that number comes from but even if we all agreed that’s the correct number to use, that 110M number refers to the global size of the market, not the U.S. market. And as we all know, if Apple were to start selling an all-in-one TV, it would not start off by offering it globally. So the 110M number simply isn’t a realistic size of the market that Apple would be entering. Adding some real data to my argument, Vizio, who is one of the best-selling TV manufactures in the market recently told me that they are forecasting to sell a total of 1.2M connected TVs this year.

Gene’s latest data about a product that does not exist comes to use last week where he surveyed 200 consumers in the Minneapolis St. Paul area and asked them what they would pay for an all-in-one Apple TV. Before you get too excited as to their answers, as the Fortune article points out, Gene says the data he’s collected from these 200 consumers is representative of a population of 300M consumers with 95% confidence. That’s absurd. The findings from a sample size of 200 consumers is supposed to represent the kind of data that would be collected if 300M consumers were interviewed? To put that in perspective, those 200 consumers equals 0.00006666666666666667% of the overall market. But the bigger point is that the data he collected shows people would not pay $1,500 for an Apple TV. When asked how much they’d be willing to pay, the average response from the consumers was $530, for a product that Gene is predicting Apple would sell for $1,500. So his own data collection doesn’t match the estimates and guidance he is giving out.

But according to Gene, if Apple was to capture only between 5-10% of his predicted 2013 connected TV market of 110 million units, it would be a big deal for Apple. On the low-end of that prediction, 5% of 110M is 5.5M units. So Gene is predicting that Apple would sell 4x the number of connected TVs that Vizio expects to sell this year, even though his own survey showed that on average people want to spend $530 for the device? None of this makes any sense. Any connected TV by Apple would easily be much more expensive than a Vizio model. Keep in mind as well, this is all taking place at a time when research firm NPD Display Search says total TV sales worldwide will only grow 2% this year and that global TV unit shipments rose only 0.1% in 2011. The price of an average 42″ smart TV, is between $500-$600 and we all know Apple’s TV wouldn’t be anything close to that price.

Last year, Gene predicted that a standalone all-in-one Apple TV would be available in 2011. In June of this year, he said it would come out in 2012, but then said we should expect it to actually ship somewhere around the first half of 2013. If an all-in-one Apple TV actually ships in 2013, that will be a full five years since Gene has been telling us all that an Apple TV was on the way. This of course is the same all-in-one Apple TV that Gene says must ship with Siri to be successful, a product he gave a D grade to only two months ago when he reviewed Siri’s functionality. In 2009 Gene predicted that Apple would sell 6.6M of the $99 Apple TV set-top boxes that year when in reality, three years later, Apple was barely selling even 3M units. In 2010, Gene said Apple would sell 20-25M iPads in 2011, and they sold 40M. He predicted Apple would sell 4.3M iPads in 2010, they sold 7.3M in one quarter. In 2007 Gene said that within two years, Apple would ship 45M phones a year. In reality, Apple shipped 25M. It’s no wonder that in 2010, on the Apple 2.0 blog, which tracks the best and worst Apple analysts, Gene was ranked 23rd out of a total of 32 analysts. But his poor track record doesn’t seem to stop the media who for some reason, continues to interview him and ask him to give his opinion on Apple products. As far as I am concerned, what Gene is doing isn’t what I would call predicting, he’s simply guessing. And so far, he’s pretty bad at it.

I get that some people are excited about an all-in-one Apple TV unit and if you are a money guy on Wall Street, like Gene is, you’re even more excited about it as you spend most of your time trying to figure out how many units of a new product a company can sell and how you can pump a stock. But we have enough real data in the market today to know what smart TVs cost, how many units are actually being sold, what the growth of the market is and what consumers are willing to pay for these devices. Even with that info available for everyone to see, some of these predictions that Wall Street guys like Gene puts out, are simply irrational and fuel expectations on Wall Street that simply can’t be met. And when wrong expectations get set, we know the outcome from that is never good – for the industry, or investors.

I haven’t been blogging too much over the past few weeks as I’ve been recovering from arm surgery which hindered my typing and blogging a lot more than I thought it would. Apparently I’m not as superhuman as I thought. The good news is that I’m well on my way to a full recovery now and can get back to typing for hours on end.

So starting Monday I will be back to blogging on a regular basis. I have lots of stories ready to go and many others in the hopper that I am working on. There has been some interesting news items over the last couple of weeks, so if there is something you really wanted to hear my thoughts on, shoot me an email or give me a call, 917-523-4562, and I’ll be happy to discuss it. I’m always available and I return all calls and emails.

Also, I wanted to say thank you to all those who have reached out to me asking how I have been doing and those who have nicely sent me get well gifts, including the cool custom cookies of me with robot arms on a Lego guy, compliments of NetDNA. More posts to come.

Cisco’s Visual Networking Index (VNI) is an annual forecast of Internet traffic trends that has become a staple of the content delivery industry. It’s hard to go to a conference or attend a webinar without seeing Cisco’s data quoted, along with the projected hockey stick of traffic volume, with the majority being video. Two months ago, Cisco released their latest data and viewed from the 30,000 foot level, the narrative has not changed.

Consumer Internet traffic continues to grow dramatically, at a 32% CAGR from 2011 through 2016. In fact the forecast itself has grown; in 2011 Cisco projected total 2012 consumer Internet traffic at 24,476 PB/month, but this year’s report shows 2012 at 30,034 PB/month, a 22% upward adjustment in just one year. Not surprisingly, Internet video represents the largest single portion of this for the entire forecast period.

For the most part all this is still true, but the full story is not quite so simple. As anyone who follows the CDN space closely knows, service based CDNs don’t make a lot of money delivering video. Margins are small, most CDNs aren’t profitable on their video traffic and all CDN vendors are working hard to diversify their revenue away from video only products.

For video being delivered on-net, or inside the MSO, ISP or carrier network, these kinds of numbers from Cisco are nectar. There is seemingly no end to the growth in video traffic flooding operator networks, so there’s a constant need for products that compress, cache, offload or optimize video traffic, inside the last mile. And since operators are mostly deploying these solutions for cost savings and QoE, with monetization models to follow, vendors that provide these type of platforms inside the network are seeing more growth than service based CDNs.

While it’s true that video is the largest single source of traffic, it’s far from dominant. At one point the report states that “the sum of all forms of video (TV, video on demand [VoD], Internet, and P2P) will be approximately 86% of global consumer traffic by 2016.” However, this number includes a very large portion of traffic such as peer-to-peer for which the underlying content is assumed to be video but the network traffic is a non-streaming form such as a file transfer, which does not lend itself to video compression, optimization or video-only caching.

The portion of consumer Internet traffic that is truly streaming video in 2012 is 57%–still significant but far less than the 86% headline–followed by file sharing at 24%, and web, email and data at 18%. What’s more is that the video portion is forecasted to decline slightly to 54% by 2016 (although it continues to grow in absolute terms). If you look at the market today, video-only tools address at most the 57% (declining to 54%) of the total traffic. Meanwhile P2P traffic tools are not thought of as “video” tools at all, even though most of the time the content they help move is video. It’s a fragmented picture and “80/20” rules do not apply.

We also constantly hear people talk about the growth of mobile data traffic and how mobile is overtaking fixed line traffic. However, according to the VNI numbers, mobile is still a very small fraction of total bits transmitted, comprising 3% today and growing only to 10% by 2016. So while mobile is important, it’s not as big of an opportunity as some make it out to be. In addition, most mobile video consumption takes place over WiFi, not over cellular. Video over 3G and 4G is not taking off as the pricing for these services are far too expensive and carriers have yet to come to the reality that consumers will not pay what they want. Mobile video consumption, especially for long-form video content, is at a stand still not because of technology, but because of the current pricing model and cap limits imposed by carriers.

So what is the implication of all this? From a traffic management perspective, operators need to deal with video but they cannot afford to have a video-only or mobile-only traffic strategy. Operators who want to provide a high quality of experience for their users and maximize offload must deploy solutions that look at the entire scope of content traffic. We tend to gravitate to 80/20 rules because they make our lives simpler, but Cisco’s latest VNI provides a case where the 80/20 rule does not apply. Effective solutions for delivering content need to address the reality of what’s really taking place in the market today and not a simplified story.

In conjunction with our Streaming Media West show, taking place Oct. 30-31 in Los Angeles, we are launching a brand new conference that will focus on video deployments within the enterprise and education verticals.

The new show is called the Enterprise Video Conference and we’ve just launched the website at EnterpriseVideoConference.com and have opened the call for speakers. The call for speakers is only open for 3 weeks and closes August 20th.

The event will he hosted and co-chaired by industry peers from Wells Fargo, Cisco, Lockheed Martin, Accenture, Polycom, Harvard University, and Northwestern University. We’re still working on the advance program for the show, but some of the topics we plan to cover include:

• Enterprise YouTube vs. Managed Video System
• Student-Generated Video on Campus
• Creating an Internal CDN to Support Video Deployments
• Webcasting Tips and Tricks From the Enterprise
• Content Management, Media Management, and Learning Management
• Video and Web Conferencing Infrastructure
• Planning an Enterprise Streaming Media Service
• Lecture Capture Systems and Lifecycle Management
• Developing a Mobile Device Strategy
• The Business Case for Video in the Enterprise
• Building a Enterprise Media Platform
• Multipoint Video Calls and Video Conferencing
• Cloud-Sourced Platforms vs. Internally Hosted Solutions
• Enterprise Live Video Production: Tips and Tricks

While there are plenty of conferences that touch on the subject of video, the Enterprise Video Conference will focus exclusively on the topic of business video, with nearly 75 speakers across 2 days and 20 sessions. The event will also showcase nearly 20 case study presentations from those who have successfully deployed video within their organization. So if you are responsible for deploying video technology and platforms inside your company, please consider doing a 20 minute presentation at the show.

If you want to be considered for a speaking spot, please get your submission in now via the website. If you would like to talk to me about an idea you had, a presentation you want to do, a topic you want to see covered or have any questions about the speaking selection process, call me anytime at 917-523-4562.

Vendors are welcome to submit speaking requests but they MUST also submit with a customer. If you have any questions on this, pick up the phone and call me. If you send in an incomplete speaking submission form, it won’t be considered. I know many vendors want to be involved in the show and if you have any questions at all about speaking, do not wait to reach out to me. Contact me immediately as the speaking spots will full up very quickly. I have already received more than two dozen speaking request from some excellent end-users, so some spots have already been filled.

This isn’t our show, it’s the industry’s and this is your chance to give feedback, pitch in and help make the Enterprise Video Conference showcase that there is more to video than just media and entertainment content. Video deployments inside the enterprise and edu don’t get enough credit and with your help, we can change that.

Over the past few quarters, Adobe has been busy releasing new and updated products and services for content owners that need to create, edit, manage, protect, distribute and monetize video. We’ve seen updates to Production Premium, Adobe Media Server and Adobe Access, amongst others, and I get a lot of questions from people asking how all of Adobe’s products fit into the video ecosystem.

Adobe’s provided me with two slides below that map it all out and make it a bit easy to visualize how their products tie together and what the video ecosystem currently looks like.