There’s a big and getting bigger market in online videos, whether rented, purchased or ad-supported. It means there’s a big and getting bigger market in products and services for the companies that package, deliver and distribute video and rich multimedia Web content to the three screens that are core to AT&T’s multimedia strategy, the computer, the television and mobile computing devices such as the iPhone and the BlackBerry (AT&T brought up the Blackberry, not us).
AT&T’s newly announced Digital Media Solutions portfolio includes content distribution and management, broadcast video and digital signage services and solutions that are targeted to companies ranging from businesses with multiple small office locations to the most sophisticated multinational companies in industries that include media, financial, education, medical, manufacturing and retail.
It has agreements with ExtendMedia, Qumu and Stratacache, software companies that specialize in formatting and packaging content that is suitable for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer applications. These include streaming video, live and on-demand Web casting, e-learning and virtual trade shows, as well as the delivery of advertising over emerging media networks.
The company plans to complete deployment of nearly $70 million in network infrastructure and development investment by year-end to support its digital media capabilities in the US, European Union countries, Japan, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan.
Over the next several months, the company will integrate the software expertise of ExtendMedia, Qumu and Stratacache with its own capabilities to provide companies with one-stop shopping and simplified network-based solutions to encode, deliver, manage and support video and multimedia files. Businesses will also be able to combine these services with AT&T’s security capabilities, hosting, applications and professional services to address their most pressing needs with complete and reliable solutions.
Its content delivery network (CDN) service replicates information across the Internet, such as Web page content, large files for download, live video and video-on-demand.
At the heart of the CDN service is AT&T’s global network and its ability to deliver content closer to the end-user by determining the optimal distribution path based on factors such as server load capacity and user proximity.
Because the content is sent from the nearest and best caching node, CDN customers are able to distribute files to end-users more efficiently.
AT&T says the service can significantly improve Web site capacity, reliability and performance because AT&T delivers content that uses its network of geographically distributed and diversely placed servers.
AT&T created a new unit called Content Distribution to accelerate the company’s activities in the content space.
AT&T has 14 million broadband users and 70 million wireless customers. It is increasingly active in offering wireless Internet access through its 17,000 Wi-Fi hotspots and cellular phone service.