The video streaming industry is rich and diverse, with companies from different verticals introducing dozens of business models. Some business models are born out of necessity to stay relevant in a highly competitive space. Others are highly commoditized, whether its the CDN sector, encoding, OTT, OVP, and so on. If we look across the entire video streaming ecosystem, including all the different verticals, it looks something like this:
Video Streaming Verticals
- CDNs: Akamai, Limelight….
- OVP’s: Brightcove, Ooyala, Wordpres…
- B2C: Vimeo, Facebook,
- OTT: Netflix, Hulu…
- Operators: Comcast, Time Warner…
- Telcos: AT&T, Verizon….
- Mfg: Alcatel, Harmonic….
- Tools: Encoding.com, Flow Player, Telestream …
Some are giants in their vertical like Akamai, Comcast and Vimeo. Others are boutique players such as JW Player and encoding.com. However, the one thing they have in common – all of the above need to sell in volume in order to flourish in the highly competitive environment.
Definition of Video Streaming Infrastructure Super Giant
With that being said, is there any one company that stands above the rest and can claim Super Giant status among the major players? A Super Giant whose products and technologies impact and influence the global streaming ecosystem globally? Here is the loose definition of a Super Giant:
- The #1 clear-cut leader in what it does
- Products that are used into multiple verticals
- Global market penetration is unmatched
- Very little direct competition
- Higher profit margins than industry average
- Massive influence over global streaming market
- Products used by Fortune 1000, Telcos, Universities, Small Businesses, Non-profits, Video Platforms, CDNs and Mid-market
If you guessed Comcast, Netflix, Akamai or Harmonic – that’s the wrong answer. The undisputed global champion and Super Giant is none other than Wowza Media Systems. Wowza powers the video streaming efforts of tens of thousands of companies around the world, similar to what Adobe did a few years back. What Wowza has done over last decade is nothing short of phenomenal. One of the key ingredient to their success – innovation. Although Wowza is smaller than the Adobe’s and Cisco’s of the world, they have out-innovated these giants in the feature set.