The optics folks and the data storage folks are going to have a long ride. Joe, I liked your thinking on the SUNW possibilities. In the past I have sold stocks way too early. Won't make the same mistake this time!
The Cost of Streaming Content
As the rivals in the streaming media arena, Microsoft and RealNetworks, release new products designed to improve the quality of digital audio and video, interest in the use of the Web as a medium to channel content to the end-user is reaching unprecedented heights. Radio and TV broadcasts are now easily accessible via the Web, such as the news items offered by the BBC through its main site. The majority of the attention concerning the downloading of content is directed towards home users, but there are also powerful business drivers. The maintenance of existing skills, and the development of new training schemes, becomes far easier and more cost-effective when a single presentation can be directed towards trainees around the world. Equally important in the realm of e-commerce, the option of creating dazzlingly interactive Web sites using streaming technology can greatly increase their stickiness. Making Web stores interesting is one of the highest perceived priorities in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) transactions, and the display of content is a critical factor in this equation.
THE BIG PICTURE
The extraordinary success of the MP3 format demonstrates how popular the ability to download content is with end-users, but the same example also highlights the enormous problems associated with the concept. The major stumbling block from a business point of view is the difficulty in establishing a secure means by which users will pay for their downloads. A related issue is the fact that with so much content being made freely available - and again, we must cite MP3 as the prime example - the question is, will users be interested in paying at all? Equally important, the quality of the content downloaded is not, as yet, comparable to the original source material. Images are still relatively small and blocky, while audio files suffer in comparison to CD formats. It is also important to view the phenomenon in a wider social context. Universities across the US took the step of banning access to Napster, an MP3 search facility, citing the increasing load on their networks as more and more students downloaded audio files en masse. As other forms of digital downloads become more common, there could be a real risk that traffic on the Internet will suffer as a result.
BUTLER GROUP OPINION
Whatever the drawbacks in establishing a viable means of making the streaming of content profitable, there can be no doubt that as the technology improves its use will explode past the impressive levels already being observed. Therefore, it would be wise to recognise this when planning new networks, encouraging the creation of an Internet backbone capable of supporting this increasing load.
Joe, Are you looking at any companies outside the well known storage/optics players? Will the optics companies and storage gorillas do equally well? Or will one outdo the other? Will be fun to track the FC index against an optics index. Would like to see the video streamers like Realnetworks integrate the SAN by partnering with SUNW? Make a Beta Super headend for Charter or something....
In the looking forward to dept.
Kinnard talked about racks of SUNW SANboxes in the future. We have pictured that in our minds for a long time, now I want to see a photo. Data centers will use rackmount for everything. ANCR should put up some photos of rackmount units...
Open Q..Are there still advantages for director switches for SUNW? Or if they put the intelligence on a storage management server will they only need racks of small SANboxes? |
