by alec on September 25, 2009
In a speech glutted with market data, Skype CSO Chris Dean began his remarks at VON by saying that there is an ongoing sea change in the telecom market, and it’s only accelerating. The macro trends are around wireless, wireline, emerging applications and service models, the economy and the regulatory environment. And he warned that there are immense risks to operators that don’t adapt.
According to Dean, 35% of Skype customers are using the product for business in some form, and 20% use video for business purposes. 95% chose Skype to save money, 62% say they communicate better, 70% say the use it for travel, and 80% say they see increased productivity.
Reaching out to wireline carriers, wireless carriers, MSO’s, OEMs, VARs, application developers and independent software vendors, Dean said that Skype is “no longer the bad-boy disruptive influence” it once was. He then went on to announce a new relationship with Cisco, and a channel program for service partners that will roll out later this year.
It was a sound and welcome riposte to the criticism that Skype has abandoned its ecosystem.
by alec on September 25, 2009
The democratization of the news took another step forward yesterday when Livestream announced Livepack. A backpack sized turnkey hardware solution that marries HD video to six load-balanced 3G modems with encoding hardware and 30 hours of uplink time per month, this solution promises to replace the ubiquitous broadcast truck with something a single person can carry.
The price? $2500 per month, or $1500 per month on a 12 month commitment. When compared to a $50,000 per day satellite truck, however, that’s nothing.
Perhaps more interesting to me, however, is the way in which this technology might disrupt the broadcast industry. Think of how tiny form factor hard disks changed the computer industry, and then imagine the potential of being able to broadcast HD video from anywhere, without a crew, and without masses of equipment. The paparazzi will have a field day, no doubt, but what will this do to political reporting, the enterprise (portable telepresence anyone?), and sports? What new venues will we see video journalists reporting from? And how will the citizen journalism movement adopt these technologies?
