The technology industry powering the media & entertainment sector is going through a major shakeup, as old business models are being replaced with new business models. The main culprit that’s forcing this change is the cloud. The cloud enables media businesses to store, encode, secure, process, tag, monetize, deliver, and do any number of things without the need of onsite hardware or software. Within the last four weeks we have seen ample evidence and activity supporting this trend, as competitors acquire each other, competitor’s partner with each other, infrastructure heavy companies roll out new media platforms, and a new crop of cloud based media companies introduce new and improved workflows that optimize collaboration, and improve the delivery of media assets through the digital supply chain.
Major Shakeup in the Media Technology Sector
Imagine Communications acquired Digital Rapids, Dalet acquired Amberfin, Harmonic partners with competitor encoding.com , Level 3 rolls out Content Exchange, and Akamai introduces a competing platform that is fully integrated with Aspera, and is MPAA Security Certified. On top of that, Aframe and MediaSilo introduce a cutting edge cloud platform that challenges the old guard. Aframe is hot right now having won over many major lables such as Fox Networks and Nickelodian. My prediction is they get acquired by Deluxe in the next 12 months.
Akamai Cloud Workflow and Level 3 Content Exchange
Even the heavy-duty infrastructure CDNs like Akamai and Level 3 are breaking new ground creating robust media platforms that compete against Aframe. After all, the Fox and Viacom’s of the world are the bread and butter business of Akamai and Level 3. The Akamai Cloud Workflow and Level 3 Content Exchange have filled a big gaping hole in their feature set by integrating Aspera into their media platforms. Aspera allows Akamai/Level 3 customers the ability to upload large mezzanine files much faster than FTP. In essence, Akamai and Level 3 are now B2B CDNs where customers, such as studios and broadcasters may exchange large media files over a private network.
Traditional CDNs Changing
Traditional Content Delivery Networks were only interested in providing the delivery of content, whether it was small file, large file, software downloads, gaming or video assets. This service is no longer enough in today’s connected world. CDNs need to offer a robust means of large file upload, that is much faster than FTP. CDNs that choose to ignore this trend, and update their product portfolio accordingly, will be be left out of the large media business. Big media business is critical to the success of any CDN. Who are the media clients that need the B2B media delivery service? Viacom, Fox, Nickelodian, Lions Gate, Weinstein Company, Discover, ESPN, Fios, and on and on. Of course, this does not apply to Incapsula, Instart Logic or Yottaa, as they service the ecommerce and security sector.