Still Some Barriers to Entry
Bandwidth isn't the only barrier to streaming in the enterprise. A corporation's acceptance of streaming media can have as much to do with corporate culture as network capacity. Command-and-control-oriented middle managers can have a tendency to feel threatened by new practices. Some companies are afraid employees are just going to listen to music and soak up precious bandwidth. Other companies have been so shortsighted as to omit soundcards when ordering employees' machines, and may well be on a five-year life cycle for their boxes.
"A lot of interesting cultural dynamics kick into this," says Exodus' Yorke. "Companies don't necessarily realize [they're] saying, ‘I want you to be the autonomous, empowered employee — but not really.'" Still, the trend is toward acceptance of streaming media. Cisco's Mike Mitchell notes, "I don't have as much pressure to justify streaming as I used to."
"It may take some time before we hear the title 'senior vice president of streaming media' uttered in the halls of the Fortune 500."
Today, there are still no reliable metrics tracking corporate streaming. Most enterprises don't even track their own use of streaming media. Frequently, corporate headquarters and the various divisions have no idea what others in the company are streaming. That will change, if for no other reason than the cost savings available through centralized purchasing. Cisco is already taking steps to organize the flow of streaming content onto its network. Mitchell explains, "To get your stream out onto our 180 servers, you have to follow guidelines. On the on-demand side, for example, we track each upload in a database - the title, who uploaded it, when it was uploaded and what bit rates were uploaded. We manage it by the exception instead of making ourselves into a bottleneck."
While the costs of enterprise streaming will go down, and the quality and functionality of streaming services will improve, it will not happen quickly. It may take some time before we hear the title "Senior Vice President of Streaming Media" uttered in the halls of the Fortune 500. Still, wise members of the streaming media community who are in it for the long haul may be well advised to focus some of their attentions on the enterprise space for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks - that's where the money is.
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