Streaming software over the 'net

Different things to different people

If you have not yet seen the latest BMW commercials, by high-profile directors Guy Ritchie and Ang Lee, on the BMW site (www.bmwfilms.com), you should question whether you truly are an internet hipster. These commercials are short films you can find on the internet, syndicated through streaming video. The theme of the films revolves around the adventures of a chauffeur, who delivers his clients, or their high-stake goods, in a BMW sedan. Guy Ritchie's film features Madonna playing a prima donna rock star.

In using streaming methods, BMW has created a niche for promoting its cars to web enthusiasts and people starving for content streamed via their internet connection at home. Streaming has come to represent different things to different people for the everyday end user. For someone interested in news clips, streaming video on demand may mean being able to click a button and get the latest news. For someone interested in getting music on demand, it may mean downloading an MP3 from the internet. Streaming has come to resemble a method of delivery of information, regardless of whether the data is truly 'streamed' versus 'downloaded'. But, technically speaking, streaming means sending data that is compressed over the internet and then displayed by the viewer as it arrives on the end user's device (PC, handheld device, etc). Streaming allows the end user to access the data without having to wait for the whole application to download. The media is sent through a continuous stream and is played as it arrives. The end user needs a client or program that decompresses the data. Media technologies generally use proprietary algorithms for compression and decompression of the data, which is then sent to the display and speakers of the device accessing the data -- hence, streaming.

However, the greatest streaming ingenuity comes from technology companies that enable robust applications and content for home and office interactivity. Such software includes games, educational software, home productivity and business applications.

Got streaming?
Two separate bodies of research have both recently concluded that streaming media is poised for take-off on the internet. The first report, conducted for the e-CAST 2001 streaming media show in London, suggests that 75% of UK and European broadcasting and e-commerce firms will use streaming media by the end of 2003. On the other side of the Atlantic, in Chesterfield, Montana, Datacomm Research has carried out a similar study, finding that streaming media is ready to take centre stage. From May to October 1999, the quantity of streaming audio sent over the internet grew by 487%, while streaming video grew by 299% compared with the previous six months, according to Gartner Group. That covers consumer and business use, although most of it is consumer use.

In April of this year, Microsoft announced findings by independent market research firm Market Decisions Corporation, revealing that one in four large US-based companies is using streaming media in their organisations. Incidentally, the announcement coincided with the firm's decision to form a strategic alliance with Qwest Communications in expanding its platform's DSL connectivity and grab potential consumers available on the communications company's IT backbone. Whether you believe Microsoft is manoeuvring tactfully, or the study was conducted for pure research, more companies than ever before are considering streaming platforms as a tool to provide information, both internally for employees, and externally to clients.

Zvi Levgoren, chief executive of Exent Technologies, developer of applications-on-demand (AoD) technology, was recently interviewed by CNN and was asked about the advantages businesses may have in using AoD streaming services. Mr. Levgoren said: 'Small or medium enterprises ... would like to have a particular type of application for occasional use, not your day-to-day use.' Levgoren referred to renting a software application instead of buying it. The idea is that a business could rent the application on a per-use basis, rather than pay hundreds or thousands dollars in advance -- depending on the number of users you have in the office. Consider this: an accountant prepares for the tax season and suddenly finds the program they bought two years ago will not comply to the existing PC platform at the office. Instead of running to the store and trying to figure out which software application to purchase from a list of ten, some costing over $1,500, the accountant chooses to rent it online for a fraction of the cost, while avoiding the risk of purchasing software that may not suit their needs.

Taking the blame
In streaming, audio or video data is transmitted to end users on a continuous basis. This feeds the stream that the end user sees on their machine. Yet, in streaming games, the concept -- from a technology standpoint -- is completely different because there is no actual streaming involved. The information is cached to the end user's PC by blocks of data, rather than a continuous stream.

The concept is truly an in-between process of downloading and streaming. In streaming audio or video, the information received on the end user's computer does not have to be acknowledged upon arrival. If information is dropped along the way, the end user experiences interference. In an audio transmission, the track will be interrupted audibly; in video, it will be interrupted both audibly and visually. The lost data will never be retransmitted unless it is specified by the end user to restart the transmission process. In streaming of software, data received by the end user is always confirmed through the client machine. There is a continual process of communication between server and client to acknowledge whether the blocks of data have been received or not. If the data is lost, the server will retransmit the information until there is confirmation. Therefore, in streaming software, the process is actually closer to downloading, yet the user thinks of it in terms of streaming because the end-user experience resembles that of streaming audio and video - immediate access to information without the download wait time.

So, where did the concept of streaming games surface in the industry? The blame can easily be put on marketing executives needing a buzzword to initiate cold calls. After all, when marketing people call upon business development people, it's unlikely they can explain the difference between streaming and caching. 'Hi, I'm Ross, and I have this great 'caching platform' to tell you about' -- does not have the same ring and clarity as 'streaming platform'. The end user will continue to refer to content coming into their home as streaming, whether it's video, audio or games. We have managed to confuse everyone for the sake of clarity, but has anyone bothered to ask the tech guys what they would like to call it?