I'm not technically well versed enough to give you an elegant answer to that one. It has, in great measure, to do with the fact that bursting becomes increasingly efficient as band width increases. IVT's early success several years ago, and their most recent sale, were in the area of LAN installations - where band width is plentiful. It is only recently that significant band width became available to web users. High speed modems, T1, DSL, cable, fiber - all have contributed to bandwidth expansion. And increasingly, the web is being used for serious work. Video and Audio, even with the new bandwidth, does not work well over the web. With "bursting" that particular shortcoming can be addressed.
The www arena seems to just now be reaching a point where "bursting" fills a recognized need. But don't forget, anywhere people need to move video and audio from one machine to another = LAN, WAN or www - bursting does it better given sufficient band width.
I'll tell you the part I don't get. VOD - why haven't we seen more action in that arena. However, the Virage/IVT news did discuss archiving/searching/delivering video and "set top" boxes in the same paragraph.
The early posters to this thread, Earl Mincer and Craig Emerzian(sp?) prominent among them, were much better than I at describing where bursting fits into the scheme of things. One was a current employee and the other a former employee. I would assume their non-participation these last months has more to do with lawyers than the technology. The IVT web site, however, has some good information on the technology and the various venues in which it applies. I recommend it to you. burst.com
Pierre |
