Recently, my wife and I made a small contribution to an elementary school in Bosier City, Louisiana.  We found the class through a site called DonorsChoose.org, which lets teachers request donations for specific projects or general needs in their classrooms.

One particular request seemed meant to be: The teacher wanted two Flip cameras to teach podcasting, editing and photo journalism to her class. Of course, this punched my buttons since I work for Cisco and have a Flip camera of my own, which I love; and my wife works in TV news — and was actually born in Bosier City, Louisiana!

So, we made a small personal donation of a few hundred dollars that enabled the school to purchase the cameras and some related tools, and thought little more of it. Then, we got a note back from the teacher with profuse thanks: The students had put the cameras to work immediately, and are creating podcasts regularly as part of their classroom work.  And then the other day in the mail came dozens of hand-written Thank You notes from the students in the class. (You can see these in the attached video.) Read More »

Tags: donation, education, giving back, video

The Challenge

At Cisco our business is focused on some pretty complex areas, to say the least. Collaboration, Virtualization, Video, Core Networking Technology…you’ve read, heard and watched us talk about all of this right here on this blog. And, as you know, when we talk about Video, for example, we’re not just talking about consumer products or just video use in the enterprise. We are talking about the entire experience of video from how it is captured and created to how it is shared and stored.

Our portfolio is great…and that is where being a communications professional becomes both a blessing and a curse. Read More »

Tags: collaboration, online video, routing and switching, tech definition, video, virtualization

In part 2 of this blog series, I discussed the need for the network to operate in collaboration with rich media applications to deliver quality services.

The key to a successful medianet architecture is the integration of endpoint/application and network to deliver a flexible end to end system. By exchanging information between these two entities, it enables the network to deliver the right services to the application whilst maximizing the resources available. This enables the network to understand the changing requirements of the application and can lead to the endpoint explicitly asking for services, such as recording and transcoding, rather than the network relying on traffic analysis to determine whether a service is needed or not. Intelligent interaction would also enable the network to negotiate service levels with the endpoints.

Read More »

Tags: enterprise networks, medianet, rich media applications, video

As I mentioned in an earlier post on the recent market study of U.S. pay-TV subscriber needs and wants, the segmentation of the video marketplace potentially  brings both new challenges and opportunities for incumbent service providers.

That said, the debate around what to do about the unprecedented growth of the Netflix phenomenon now seems to be a moot point – as incumbent pay-TV service providers openly acknowledge its disruptive impact on the traditional video entertainment industry. And, now they’re proceeding with their plans to execute their long-awaited counter strategy.

Clearly, 2011 could prove to be a pivotal year for testing new business cases, as the marketplace becomes more fluid and is subject to further significant changes that are on the near horizon.

While it’s perfectly understandable that incumbent pay-TV service providers might prefer to bundle a Netflix-like, on-demand IP video service offering with their standard digital cable tier subscriptions, let’s remember that this is but one potential scenario.

Revisiting the results of the Cisco market study, it’s interesting that note that – by far – “the most likely motivation to pay for an online video package…” is a low price point. Call this the “value-based” market segment, if you will – it likely includes some current subscribers and previously lost customers. To win-back these prior subscribers, such as those that are looking at more of an iTunes or Hulu approach to catch up on their TV, an unbundled IP VOD offering by the provider could be very attractive.

Read More »

Tags: ip, ip video, Market Fragmentation, Pay-TV Market, Service Provider, video, Video On Demand, VOD

When you think of the  broadcast video entertainment arena, it seems to have been centered upon the notion that there’s a huge undifferentiated mass-market of consumers who — by and large — all want the same thing.

Incumbent pay-TV service offerings have tended to follow this belief, by delivering a small set of standardized service packages. And for the longest time there’s been no compelling need for traditional service providers to more closely scrutinize the market segmentation variables.

Now though, we’re clearly seeing a shift in the marketplace, that reflects an acknowledgement of the growing market fragmentation. In an on-demand, personalized world  some service providers are already voicing their intent to offer more flexibility in their pay-TV service options and associated pricing.

Granted, a small subset of U.S. pay-TV subscribers have, for a number of different reasons, decided not to wait for their incumbent service provider to introduce more granular or flexible service packages. These people are among the early-adopter cord-cutters that have been equally vocal about their preference for alternative value-based offerings.

We’ve been intrigued by these recent developments, and so we commissioned a market study to learn more about the potential for increased diversity of U.S. pay-TV customer needs and wants. The following are some highlights of what we were able to uncover. Read More »

Tags: Broadcast TV, ip, ip video, Pay TV, Service Provider, video