Virage goes German

Virage, a streaming media technology company, has launched a franchise operation for German speaking countries, in association with Jet2Web, a subsidiary of Telecom Austria.

The reseller channel, branded IVS (Interactive Video Services), is intended to supply Virages' ASP offering to the German market from Vienna. An English language version has been available for around 2 years, claiming customers such as Reuters and CNet.

David Girouard, Virage VP products, services and strategy, said: ‘This service is good for those that need to be up and running quick – in 2-3 weeks we can have a fully functioning video site up and running. Germany is also our joint biggest European market with the UK, so it makes sense to partner to service it.’

According to Girouard, the migration from an outsourced service to a client hosted one is simple: ‘Most clients continue with the outsourced service – CNet originally planned to have all the tech in house, but they’ve kept using the ASP model for the last 2 years.’

Virage already has similar deals in Korea, and is apparently looking for opportunities in Latin America and Asia. According to the company, most of its current 60-70 customers for the service are media-based, although several corporates have signed up in the last quarter.

Girouard continued: ‘Although we are currently seeing the greatest growth in this sector behind the corporate firewall, many companies are shy about streaming across their internal networks. However, most customers we have come to us have networks that are perfectly capable of supporting this technology already.’