Akamai Targets Corporate Video

Is the corporate world of online video expanding to the point where enterprises feel a need for robust command-and-control systems? That’s what content management giant Akamai is hoping, announcing Monday a “rich media management solution” called Stream OS to give enterprise users a single-screen interface from which to manage distribution of various forms of digital content.

Whether or not most enterprises have the online distribution demands of the NBA — one of the early customers of the technology — is probably a remains-to-be-seen question. But there is little doubt that as production and dissemination costs continue to plummet for digital content assets, more will be created — so invariably enterprise IT managers will want to find some way to wrap their hands around what gets distributed, and where it happens. The Akamai Stream OS is the first branded Akamai product to come out of Akamai’s acquisition of streaming-video expert house Nine Systems late last year.

The Stream OS is a hosted application, so any enterprises who want to use it will also have to become customers of Akamai’s Content Distribution Network, since the two are tightly linked. Akamai product marketing manager Suzanne Johnson would not divulge any pricing for the Stream OS application, but said it is clearly targeted at the media and entertainment industries, as well as larger enterprises who might have a lot of audio and video content (podcasts, training films, etc.) that could benefit from an organized distribution scheme.