July 16, 2012
Volume XL, Issue 3
i3m3 Solutions Sponsors CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012
The DCIA and CCA proudly announce that i3m3 Solutions has signed on as a sponsor of the CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 (CCW:2012) business leadership summit taking place November 8th-9th in Santa Monica, CA.
i3m3 Solutions is a US-based corporation providing services that assess, transform, and implement web-centric mobility and cloud solutions for service providers and enterprises. Its deliverables include cloud evolution and assessment planning; information technology (IT) vision, solution architecture, and technology roadmap development; go-to-market strategies, and business case structure.
i3m3 Solutions clients benefit from services encompassing identification of new revenue sources and business models, enabling ecosystems for "legacy-to-cloud" migration of IT applications, and IT business growth models for data center automation and mobile strategy.
CCW: 2012 will feature three co-located conferences focusing on the impact of cloud-based solutions in the industry's fastest-moving and most strategically important areas: entertainment, broadband, and venture financing.
i3m3 Solutions Managing Partner Prabhat Kumar will keynote the "Third-Party Information-as-a-Service (IaaS)" session. Prabhat brings over 25 years of global IT and Telecom management and consulting experience. He built businesses in fixed-line, mobility and cable operations with COLT Telecom/Fidelity Broadband, UK; Liberty Global (UPC/Chello broadband), Netherlands; and AT&T Bell Labs and Alcatel-Lucent. His expertise and focus includes developing data-center based applications and creating IT and Telecom fusion strategy, by leveraging virtualization, storage, and networking technologies.
i3m3 Solutions Partner David Sterling will participate in the "Impact of Cloud Computing on ISPs" panel. David brings over 20 years of management and consulting experience with AT&T, British Telecom, and Fidelity Investments (Devonshire Investors). He has built product portfolios and marketed businesses covering managed solutions and mobility services, data center and infrastructure development, data and hosting services, as well as B2B applications.
Prabhat and David recently co-authored the book on managing cloud computing transitions entitled Dancing on a Cloud: A Framework for Increasing Business Agility.
CCW:2012 registration enables delegates to participate in any session at the three conferences being presented at CCW:2012 — ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY, NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, and INVESTING IN THE CLOUD.
CCW:2012 features one common exhibit hall and all networking functions (e.g., luncheon, refreshment breaks, evening cocktail reception, etc.) are open to all attendees at no additional cost.
Information Technology Spending to Hit $3.6 Trillion in 2012
Excerpted from NY Times Report by Quentin Hardy
Fueled by an accelerating move to cloud computing, and by a boom in associated telecommunications services, worldwide information technology (IT) spending is increasing somewhat faster than expected, according to industry analysts at Gartner.
Over all, people will spend $3.6 trillion on IT in 2012, the research firm said. This represents a 3 percent increase from 2011, when $3.5 trillion was spent, Gartner said, and is up from the 2.5 percent increase projected three months ago.
The increase, while modest, is notable because it is happening in the face of a financial crisis in Europe, slow growth in the United States, and a slowdown in China's economic growth.
Spending on public cloud services is expected to increase 20 percent, to $109 billion, from $91 billion in 2011. By 2016, Gartner said, this expenditure could nearly double, to $207 billion.
That would still be a relatively small portion of the total spending, though it tends to represent considerable computing power and potentially more efficient IT systems.
The greatest spending in the field, by far, remains telecommunications services. Gartner forecast that companies would spend $1.69 trillion on telecommunications this year, up only 1.4 percent from 2011. Fees for these services tend to be dropping, but Gartner cited increased demand from developing economies, as well as the rising demand generated by the boom in connected devices, like tablets and game consoles.
Gartner said over 200 business and technology analysts worldwide contributed to the report. These analysts also saw a 2.3 percent increase, to $864 billion, in fees for technology service. The consultants said consulting was in high demand, as companies try to manage things like their own complex systems, cloud computing, and the rise of analytics.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Leading up to this week's exclusive retreat for media moguls and technology gurus, held annually in Sun Valley, ID by sponsor Allen & Company, entertainment sector leaders have been contemplating lessons learned from their failed attempt to pass the misguided SOPA and PIPA legislation in the US six months ago.
Led by high-traffic Internet-based companies, trade organizations — including the DCIA — focused on technology advancement, and public advocacy groups, opposition to these ill-conceived and overbearing measures quickly gained momentum creating an unprecedented expression of outrage among the online community.
Congress could not ignore this force, and ultimately abandoned these wrong-headed bills.
A constructive outcome of the SOPA & PIPA debacle would be to change a now tired tactic that Hollywood interests have come to rely upon too frequently in recent years — trying to preserve outdated business models by influencing governments to enact laws that hobble the pace of technological advancement.
The DCIA hopes one lesson that will be learned is this: stop turning to lawmakers for temporary relief. Mutually beneficial progress won't happen if content providers and technology developers don't collaborate with each other on innovative private-sector endeavors grounded in physical and business realities.
This year's conference of high-profile executives included News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch and Chase Carey, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Viacom's Philippe Dauman, Google's Sergey Brin, Time Warner's Jeff Bewkes, and Apple's Tim Cook.
Reasons to be hopeful include the example of online movie and TV program distributor Netflix, which traditional entertainment companies are coming to view as an attractive new revenue stream, delivering $8/month subscribers by repurposing mostly older fare.
Media companies now recognize that they can require usernames and passwords on the Internet to make sure that everyone pays for their films and shows.
Disney very recently introduced a "Watch Disney" app that lets paying subs watch live shows on iPhones or iPads, which has quickly reached the top-ten weekly download list.
And the stock market reflects optimism towards media. Comcast, which now owns NBC Universal as well as cable systems, gained 34% this year, leading the S&P 500 Media Index. Time Warner Cable ranked second and Disney third with strong double digit gains; but the market has not been as sanguine on the technology side: Facebook is down 19% from its May 1PO, Google is off 12% YTD, and Zynga has declined 47%. A reason for the tech sector stumbling is that it is not in sync with major entertainment.
In what at first seems merely to be an ironic turn but which may actually be a harbinger of other industry leader turnabouts, Barry Diller, the consummate Hollywood dealmaker who revamped the TV business in the 1980s, was back in the spotlight at Sun Valley — only now representing interests from the other side of what unfortunately continues to be a "debate."
As covered next in DCINFO, a federal judge this week threw out an injunction against Aereo, the online TV service he backs, in a suit brought by broadcasters ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC.
Aereo streams free over-the-air television broadcast station program signals to smart-phones, tablets, and other mobile devices for $12 a month.
The decision made IAC/InterActiveCorp. Chairman Diller, who attended this week's confab along with highly placed representatives of the plaintiffs trying to shut down Aereo, a controversial media player once again.
A concern for TV industry executives and media investors is that if services like Aereo are a success, this could disrupt the $100 billion dollar pay-television industry for programmers and distributors as subscribers cut-the-cord on their aging cable or satellite services in favor of such new IPTV services.
About Aereo, Diller said, "If you're a consumer and you'd like an alternative to paying for cable or paying for satellite and you want to receive free broadcast signals, which is your kind of native American right given that the public owns the airwaves, then you will like it."
The immediate danger for the TV business was raised in Sun Valley by Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt, who pointed out that the Aereo case could significantly impact retransmission consent, the government-sanctioned regime under which cable operators currently pay broadcasters to carry their station signals.
"If Aereo is found to be legal, then the idea of consumers having to pay for otherwise free broadcast signals is called into question," Britt said.
Retrans fees have been a lucrative new source of revenue for broadcasters like CBS and FOX in recent years, but also a source of contention for cable and satellite companies, leading to blackouts for consumers during carriage agreement rate disputes.
Liberty Media Chairman and Sun Valley attendee John Malone cheered the ruling. "Good for Barry. I love the concept because it will ultimately defang broadcast retransmission, which I always thought was one of the worst decisions of the government. It gave way too much power to the broadcast network owners," he said.
"Unfortunately the net effect of it will be to cause the broadcast guys to just take the important programming off their broadcast networks and put it on their cable networks. I think it's a whole lot of noise, which ultimately won't change things much."
Meanwhile, Malone's latest conflict of egos, evidenced several times in Idaho, is with Mel Karmazin and concerns the future control of Sirius XM Radio. Liberty has recently acquired 46.5% of Sirius in a takeover bid, triggering current Sirius CEO Karmazin to rebel.
"I would prefer not to lose Mel but he's gone public and said he won't work for me, so what am I supposed to do?" quipped Malone.
Malone also offered an interesting insight into the cultural differences between content and technology leaders with his comments on some of Liberty's other ventures, such as Live Nation Entertainment: "You're talking about rock musicians; this is not my kind of thing," he said, adding, "I don't like a business where the assets go up and down on elevators. I like them to be fixed, hung on poles, or up in space going around."
Related to Aereo developments, BET cable network founder Robert Johnson noted in Sun Valley that the move to online video will increase pressure to unbundle multichannel video program distributor (MVPD) channel packages, which averaged $80/month in 2011.
The result may be more pressure to sell channels individually: "If that's all you want to watch, that's all you're going to pay for," he said.
Share wisely, and take care.
Aereo Win Could Be a Turning Point for Online Video
Excerpted from Online Video Daily Report by Ross Fadner
Increasingly, it looks like the television and online video industries are on a collision course, as broadcasters continue to battle with pay TV providers over carriage fees and online TV startups like Aereo make it easier for consumers to cut the cord and still get their content.
The momentum may finally be moving in online video's favor. On Wednesday, a federal judge rejected a request by broadcasters to halt the operations of Aereo, which uses antennas to pick up broadcasters' signals in New York and then streams their channels online for a subscription fee.
The broadcasters — which include Fox, PBS, Tribune, Gannett and WNET — accused the Barry Diller-backed company of "misappropriating copyrighted material" by essentially stealing broadcast signals without paying for them. The group says it will appeal the decision.
Separately, Viacom on Wednesday decided to curtail U.S. access to some of its television content online in a move that many see as a direct reaction to its dispute with DirecTV over the carriage fee it receives in exchange for distributing its content via the pay-TV service. As of late Tuesday, Viacom channels like MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central were blacked out for about 20 million DirecTV subscribers.
By Wednesday afternoon, the media giant responded by cutting off access to some of its content, including "The Daily Show," to all U.S. Web users.
"Once again it's viewers who suffer when media companies stall in their negotiations. But the scale of Viacom's overreaction is unprecedented," John Bergmayer, a senior staff attorney for public interest group Public Knowledge, told The Washington Post.
"Viacom has decided to take a service away from all Internet users in its attempt to punish DirecTV," Bergmayer said. "It is apparent that Viacom puts little stock in the Internet and the online future of video if it is willing to use all Internet users as a pawn in its negotiations."
Viacom's dispute with DirecTV is not the only wrangle over carriage fees. Big media companies keep demanding higher fees from pay-TV operators, who in turn feel they are being held hostage by the content owners. As a result, consumers end up paying higher monthly subscription fees for their pay-TV service. Many consumers are irate with this arrangement, because they only watch a handful of the hundreds of channels they are paying for.
Meanwhile, web-based services like Aereo are trying to benefit from this disconnect by offering fewer channels and cheaper monthly subscription fees.
The Sun Shines on "The Cloud"
Excerpted from Wall Street Journal Report by John Bussey
What's the real lesson to be learned from Amazon's cloud computing failure two weeks ago, the one that knocked Netflix and other websites offline?
Far from being a dangerous sign that the cloud is unreliable, it was actually a blip — a painful one — on a trend line that is vectoring upward, much to the benefit of global business.
There's a lesson to be learned from Amazon's cloud computing outage two weeks ago that knocked Netflix and other websites offline.
There have been sporadic problems at a range of cloud providers, and each produced worrying headlines: "Can You Trust the Cloud?" "Are We Over-dependent on Cloud Services?"
But what we're seeing isn't a breakdown. Instead, it's the rapid expansion of a big new industry that is still in its shakedown phase — finding and fixing problems. This is Henry Ford getting the kinks out of his assembly line or cell-phone companies trying to fix the dropped-call problem.
The cloud-computing industry is booming. IDC, a research firm, says public information-technology cloud services world-wide had $16 billion in revenue in 2009. That's forecast to more than double this year and to hit $73 billion by 2015, adding substantial productivity to business along the way.
"While it's easy and common to blame the cloud for outages because it's outside of our control, we found that our overall availability over the past several years has steadily improved," Netflix, the online movie website, said in a statement Friday. This from a company badly walloped June 29 when an Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center in Virginia lost power.
The cloud is actually getting more reliable, contends Netflix. Sticking with Amazon, says the company's Chief Product Officer, Neil Hunt, gives Netflix "much larger scale and technical expertise" than it would otherwise have.
EveryBlock, a local news website, was even more forgiving after AWS problems in April 2011 knocked the company offline. "Frankly, we screwed up," the company said in a blog post. "AWS explicitly advises that developers should design a site's architecture so that it is resilient to occasional failures and outages such as what occurred yesterday, and we did not follow that advice."
"Cloud computing is still very young," says George Reese, Chief Technology Officer of enStratus, which helps companies adapt to the cloud. "Everyone has warts. But if you're smart about how you adopt cloud computing, then the advantages, the economies of scale, certainly outweigh the warts."
Some companies opt to use the cloud for back-office work, keeping mission-critical functions in house. Others, particularly start-ups, build their entire business on the service.
In either case, companies are aiming to reduce IT costs and add technical capability by outsourcing work to big data centers run by such companies as Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Rackspace. Customers access services over the Internet as if they were in a "cloud," hence the buzzword.
AWS has hundreds of thousands of customers and data centers stretching from Japan to Ireland to Brazil and the US.
Amazon launched AWS in 2006. Now the largest cloud services provider, it has hundreds of thousands of customers and data centers stretching from Japan to Ireland to Brazil and the US.
Bob Igou of Gartner, the research firm, says companies list cost savings as the chief reason for going to the cloud. But they also say maintenance costs and integration problems can affect those savings, and they list data security as the cloud's chief "challenge."
For additional worries, consider what happened at that Amazon data center in Virginia two weeks ago.
An electrical storm jangled power to the center. Generators kicked in but failed to stabilize the load. Power went off to part of the data center. Then a software bug delayed recovery.
Brandon Wade, CEO of Infostream Group, which runs dating websites, says his company tried to call Amazon for help when service crashed.
His techs couldn't get through. Amazon's overall performance, says Mr. Wade, was "inexcusable."
The tech community is split over AWS's troubles: Some commentators blame customers for failing to build more redundancy into their cloud products by spreading service over multiple data centers or regions. Others say Amazon is at fault for overpromising and under-delivering.
For its part, Amazon apologized for the power outage, posted an explanation of what went wrong, and said it would fix the problems. As for reliability, technology analysts say you'd be hard pressed to find an in-house corporate IT operation that tops AWS's cloud service. "I've never had a client complain about Amazon outages," says Joe Pucciarelli of IDC. "Generally, they say they exceed what they've committed to."
"When you look at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, they are more stable and more robust than anything a corporation would be willing to invest in," says Mike Cooke of Booz & Co.
Kay Kinton, a spokeswoman for AWS, says the company commissioned independent research from IDC that examined a small sample of AWS customers and found that four-fifths said their unplanned downtime dropped after they moved operations to the cloud. On average, the downtime fell to 1.50 hours per user per year from 5.40 hours. The firms reported a 70% cost savings from shifting operations to cloud computing, Ms. Kinton says.
But it's too late to convince Mr. Wade at Infostream. Hurt by a separate snafu at an Amazon data center on June 14, he barely had time to recover before the power problems hit June 29th.
So he pulled the plug on AWS. He's planning to move his dating services to Rackspace, Google or another provider.
Nothing like a little competition to speed an industry's maturation.
Joyent's Cloud Now Competes with Google, Amazon
Excerpted from Information Week Report by Charles Babcock
While Amazon and Google steal the limelight, Joyent has been hard at work off in the wings building out a competitive cloud infrastructure to compete with both of them. So far it's raised $120 million to produce an infrastructure that departs significantly from both Amazon and Google.
At the same time, it competes on price and has the option of offering a 100% uptime guaranteed service level agreement. Amazon guarantees 99.9% or extends credits equal to the downtime experienced by the customer, an approach that doesn't recognize the cost to the business of being down. Google guarantees 99.95% uptime and also extends credits for downtime. Joyent returns 5% of the monthly fee for each 30 minutes of downtime encountered, even though 30 minutes is less than 1% of the month.
Joyent servers don't run Linux, as Google and Amazon servers do. It runs SmartOS, a derivative of Illumos, an open source operating system started in 2010 to make the former Sun OpenSolaris operating system more open than Oracle was inclined to allow.
Joyent's use of SmartOS enables the use of the Dtrace utility to track the performance of a running application. "We do tons of instrumentation with Dtrace across the system," said Jason Hoffman, Founder and CTO of Joyent.
SmartOS invokes the use of Solaris-style zones in virtualization, where one operating system supports the operation of many virtual machines, instead of each VM needing to fire up its own. That means one host has one operating system, not a whole set of them, with more efficient multi-tenant operations. And it includes the ZFS file system, originated by Sun and allowing for the verified movement of files, something like the two-phase commit pattern of relational databases, said Hoffman. That provides for assured data movement in the cloud, supervised by the file system itself.
The typical x86 malware writer is not familiar with these features. If an intruder gets beyond the perimeter into the Joyent cloud, he lands in an operating system he doesn't recognize, using a file system with its own protections built in and running virtual machines in a way that doesn't look like anything he's seen before. Hoffman compares the protective layers to the double-hulled oil tanker that can suffer an outer hull breach but not lose any oil.
Instead of being a front-end CPU- and server-based design, Joyent's cloud infrastructure considers the backend more important. Its design is built to provide CPU and memory at the service of a storage system that resembles the Sun Unified Storage platform, a system that included a large, high-speed cache memory based on flash drives. It also uses a ZFS file system and lots of storage management smarts built in.
That design springs from Hoffman's experience as a cancer pathologist, building in an earlier life a supercomputer to help with cancer research. "We were building an I/O constrained supercomputer," he said, self-mockingly, of that effort. It was loaded with CPU and memory and could tackle complex algorithms, but it was restricted by the small pipes leading to and from the data. He knew from experience a successful cloud design would require heavy I/O throughput to storage.
The result, Hoffman said, is "purposeful engineering to deliver a highly scalable, flexible, and resilient cloud for business." Amazon has taken what worked for its retail operation and generalized it for public use. Google has taken what worked for its search engine and generalized it as public infrastructure. Joyent has designed cloud infrastructure from the ground up for business. The CPU to storage connection "is like the back end of a SAN with I/O on it," he said. High I/O rates are built-in.
Hoffman leaves the impression that a lot of Sun expertise has migrated into Joyent. Bryan Cantrill, author of Dtrace and designer of Sun's Unified Storage platform, works there, along with much of the Unified Storage platform team. Joyent also maintains Seattle offices, where it employs a group of former Amazon engineers.
Joyent has received a total $120 million in backing, with Intel one of its early backers, to build out its infrastructure as a service. It's a large figure, but Amazon, Google, or Microsoft probably spend $200 million to $400 million per large data center.
Joyent competes with other vendors at prices "similar to Amazon's or 20% lower," Hoffman claimed. That also translates into a 4-cent to 8-cent charge per hour for a one GB RAM virtual machine.
Joyent is running an estimated 200,000 VMs for 20,000 to 30,000 customers on infrastructure in multiple data centers. It will sell its infrastructure design direct to customers through partners, such as Dell, for installation on premises to be managed as a private cloud. Or it will supply infrastructure through partners, such as Telefonica in Spain.
Hoffman said San Francisco, CA based Joyent is not focused on competing with big established cloud vendors so much as it seeks to convert more of its natural business clientele to its style of cloud computing. Joyent can run workloads running any hypervisor, whether VMware ESX Server, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Systems XenServer, or Red Hat's KVM.
The SmartOS operating system knows to use the hardware extensions built into Intel (and AMD) chips that allow some calls for hardware operations to occur directly between the application and the hardware instead of being handled by the hypervisor, another aid to efficient operation.
"It wouldn't be possible for us to be in business without SmartOS. We need an always consistent file system. It's impossible for data to be lost or corrupted in our file system," he asserted.
With its unique cloud infrastructure and growing customer base, Joyent will become a large infrastructure vendor by continuing its unique approach, not copying the competition, Hoffman said.
The Big Data and Cloud Computing Trends Depend on Open Source
Excerpted from OStatic Report by Sam Dean
Reuven Cohen has an interesting post up on Forbes' site, which asks, Free Versus Open: Does Open Source Software Matter in the Cloud Era? He writes, "I like open source as much as the next guy but, from a value proposition standpoint, just being 'open source' doesn't sound all that compelling to me. This has become especially true in the emerging cloud computing landscape where APIs and Big Data have become some of the most valuable currencies." In fact, though, as the transition to the cloud and Big Data continue, open source software is playing an absolutely critical role.
Cohen notes that Big Data has become one of the "most valuable currencies," but isn't the open source Hadoop platform — used to sift insights from extremely large data sets — one of the flagship pieces of software driving the Big Data trend? Hadoop has given rise to promising startup companies such as Hortonworks, focused on training and services surrounding it.
Meanwhile, on the cloud computing front, open source platforms such as OpenStack, CloudStack, and Eucalyptus are presenting important alternatives for companies that want more flexibility than proprietary cloud platforms provide. There is a whole ecosystem of open source tools taking shape around these.
And, as cloud computing proliferates, let's not forget that Google, Yahoo, and many of the most successful Internet companies have built themselves around open tools, and made important contributions to FOSS. Let's take Yahoo, for example.
In 2009, Yahoo donated Traffic Server scalable caching proxy to the Apache Software Foundation, and the cloud computing team at Yahoo contributed this guest post to us here at OStatic about it. Traffic Server is used in-house at Yahoo to manage its own traffic and it enables session management, authentication, configuration management, load balancing, and routing for entire cloud computing stacks.
Yahoo has always had developers and APIs deeply focused on PHP, Java, JavaScript, AJAX, ColdFusion, Ruby, Python and much more, in addition to many cross-platform applications.
The company has also been open about sharing user interface tools, as you can see at the Yahoo User Interface Library (YUI). And, Yahoo's site was built from day one to run on FreeBSD technology. Beyond that, Yahoo is recognized for developing its own distribution of Hadoop technology for querying huge data sets and contributed mightily to the advancement of Hadoop.
Neither Big Data nor cloud computing would be the same today without these efforts, where open source software has been critical to progress. These trends are relatively young, too, and open source software will stay critical as they mature.
2012 Digital Storage for Media and Entertainment
The eighth annual report from Coughlin Associates on digital storage in media and entertainment, 2012 Digital Storage for Media and Entertainment Report, provides 166 pages of in-depth analysis of the role of digital storage in all aspects of professional media and entertainment.
Projections out to 2017 of digital storage demand for content capture, post-production, content distribution and content archiving are provided in 59 tables and 83 figures.
The report includes results from a 2012 survey of mostly SMPTE members on their digital storage needs in these target segments (comparing the results to similar 2009 and 2010 surveys).
These surveys were used to refine the current report analysis from previous editions and track industry trends. The report benefited from input from many experts in the industry which, along with economic analysis and industry publications and announcements, was used to create the data including in the report. Some highlights from the report:
As image resolution increases and as stereoscopic video becomes more common, storage requirements explode.
The development of HDTV and other high resolution venues in the home and in mobile devices will drive the demand for digital content.
Activity to create capture and display devices for 8K X 4K content is occurring with planned implementation in common media systems by the next decade.
Active archiving will drive increased use of HDD storage for "archiving" applications supplementing tape for long term archives.
Flash memory appears to be reaching tipping point in professional video cameras with survey results showing about 37% utilization in 2012 (growing from 2009 and 2010 survey results). Flash memory is also playing a role in content distribution and post production.
Between 2012 and 2017 we expect about a 5.6 X increase in the required digital storage capacity used in the entertainment industry and about a four-fold increase in storage capacity shipped per year (from 22,425 PB to 87,152 PB).
Total media and entertainment storage revenue will grow more than 1.4 X between 2012 and 2017 (from $5.6 B to $7.8 B).
The greatest storage capacity demand in 2012 was for digital conversion and preservation as well as archiving of new content (about 98%). Content distribution follows in size with acquisition and post-production using less storage.
In 2012 we estimate that about 43% of the total storage media capacity shipped for all the digital entertainment content segments was digital tape with about 41% HDDs, 16% optical discs and flash 0.2% (mostly in digital cameras and some media distribution systems). By 2017 tape will be reduced to 38%, HDDs to 59%, optical discs to about 3% and flash memory will have increased to 0.3%.
Total revenue for storage media and devices used in media and entertainment applications will increase about 1.3 X from 2012 to 2017 ($774 M to $974 M).
Storage in remote "clouds" is beginning to play an important role in enabling collaborative workflows.
Silver halide film as a content distribution media will vanish before the end of the decade.
Purchase of the report and the accompanying power point presentation with report figures and tables provides the most definitive information on digital storage trends for the professional media and entertainment industry.
The 2012 Digital Storage for Media and Entertainment Report is now available from Coughlin Associates. To get a copy, call 408-978-8184 or e-mail tom@tomcoughlin.com.
Apple Says Yes to BitTorrent Remote Transmission RPC for iOS
Excerpted from Cult of Mac Report by Killian Bell
Apple has been pretty strict on BitTorrent clients — or anything related to torrent downloading — for iOS, and it does its best to keep them out of the App Store, meaning you must jailbreak your device if you want to install one.
However, the Cupertino company appears to have let one slip through its net. Transmission RPC, although not a full-fledged BitTorrent client, is a $1.99 app that allows you to control Transmission for Mac OS X from your iOS device.
It doesn't allow you to download files to your iOS device, but it does allow you to open torrent files, then proceeds to download them in Transmission on your Mac. Its App Store description makes that clear:
The transmission rpc is a application that connects to a transmission server thru network to perform the download.
The download will not be performed on ios device! it will be performed on the server.
Despite this, Transmission RPC is incredibly useful. When you're out and about, it allows you to begin downloads that will be ready for you by the time you get home. It can also be used to pause downloads, check the status of each of your downloads, delete torrents from the Transmission server, and more.
Essentially, then, it's no different to the Transmission web client, which can be accessed via mobile Safari on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. But if you prefer a native experience, then Transmission RPC can help. You might want to grab it quick, though; it probably won't be around for long.
Gamers Aren't Familiar with Cloud Gaming, But They're Interested
Excerpted from Games Industry International Report by Matt Martin
The Western gaming audience has had little exposure to cloud gaming despite its two most prolific proponents - OnLive and Gaikai - claiming engagement with millions of users.
Consumer-focused service OnLive doesn't give out user figures but claims to be reaching "millions" of users in press statements, while Gaikai's business-to-business technology has been adopted by the majority of games publishers, YouTube, retailers such as Walmart, and social networking site Facebook.
But according to a report by Interpret which surveyed digital gamers in ten countries, players in markets such as the US, UK, France, Germany, and Australia have low familiarity levels with cloud gaming, ranging between 3 and 5 per cent.
However, once educated on the possibilities of cloud gaming - streaming high-end PC games to low spec hardware without the need for downloads - interest levels rose significantly.
52 per cent of digital gamers in the US said they were very or somewhat interested in cloud gaming services, followed by 49 per cent of Australians and 46 per cent of UK gamers.
French and German players were less interested at 36 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively.
Earlier this month Sony Computer Entertainment acquired cloud gaming service Gaikai for $380 million, a move that Interpret VP Michael Cai called "a strategic move that provides a path for the gradual migration of gaming to the cloud."
"This acquisition is well aligned with Sony's transition from a hardware-centric to network-centric company," he added. "Furthermore, Sony stands to capitalize on its established relationship with young male gamers - in Western countries, males 13-34 comprise one third to one half of those very interested in trying a cloud gaming service."
Huawei Launches Public Cloud Solution and Innovation Center
Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, has announced the global launch of its Telco Public Cloud solution and Public Cloud Services Innovation Center both of which are aimed at enabling telecom operators to achieve business innovation via IT excellence.
The two latest solutions will be consolidated with Huawei's full range of Cloud IT infrastructure, equipment, and management software portfolio specifically designed for operators.
Huawei's Telco Public Cloud solution will enable operators to provide service-level agreement (SLA) guaranteed services such as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and software-as-a- service (SaaS) to end-users through Huawei managed services.
Integrating servers, storage, and other IT infrastructure, Huawei Telco Public Cloud services also unify and effectively manage resources from cooperative independent software vendors (ISVs).
To support its Telco Public Cloud solution, Huawei has also founded a global Cloud Services Innovation Center. Through the center, Huawei will be able to provide IT resources such as computing and storage, as well as integrate industry-leading corporate office application software from Microsoft, Oracle, and Kingdee.
Operators around the world can logon to the center's website for access to small-scale commercial operation of public cloud, enabling them to accumulate operating experience and further understand customer demands.
In addition, carrier operator's customers can also register through the self-service function to benefit from real-life experiences and case studies from the facilities utilizing public cloud services.
Huawei has collaborated with 85 customers in 33 countries on the commercial use of cloud computing, seeing a year-on-year increase of 130% in the global sales volume of Huawei servers associated with cloud computing and data center construction.
Just last month, the company received the prestigious honor of "Best Cloud Platform for Africa" from analyst firm Informa Telecom & Media for Huawei's Galax Cloud Platform — the core component of Huawei's cloud solutions which has been used across the MENA region and around the world.
Growth Plans for Telefonica Digital
Excerpted from Nasdaq Report
Spanish telecom giant Telefonica plans to double its revenue from the Telefonica Digital division by 2015 through various strategic developments. The unit includes Spain's popular social networking site Tuenti, Internet telephony provider Jajah, Internet portal Terra, and other businesses such as giffgaff. The strategies include: Direct-to-Bill Payments : The company will offer direct-to-bill payments for goods and services, particularly in Latin America, in collaboration with Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Research In Motion (RIM). This alliance would be fruitful for Telefonica, as credit card penetration in Latin America is low and 60% of the population does not have a bank account.
Additionally, Telefonica's direct-to-bill payments are already gaining huge traction in Europe and Germany. The company expects to reach 14 markets globally with the service by the year-end.
Strategic Partnership: Telefonica Digital entered into a partnership with UAE-based operator Emirates Telecommunications (Etisalat). The agreement will enable companies to jointly expand their business opportunities in M2M, financial services, cloud computing, eHealth, mobile advertising, and over-the-top (OTT) communications.
Mobile Advertising in Brazil: Telefonica will make an investment of multi-million euros to develop the mobile advertising market in Brazil.
Deployment of Firefox OS: Telefonica Digital will continue to deploy Mozilla's HTML5 platform (known as Firefox OS) on its mobile handsets, leading to low cost devices. This platform will boost smart-phone penetration in the developing markets.
All these initiatives would help Telefonica Digital to outperform in the global digital market with greater opportunity and more efficiency. The expansions would aid Telefonica Digital to grow its revenues by 20% to 5 billion euros by 2015 from the current 2.4 billion.
Digiturk Selects Octoshape to Deliver Online Turkish Football League
Streaming media innovator Octoshape has been chosen by Digiturk, Turkey's premier satellite TV provider, for Internet video streaming services for the Turkish Football League and various other Digiturk online content offerings.
With Turkey having such a high national interest in football, Digiturk takes special care to provide high quality and uninterrupted viewing experiences to viewers whenever and wherever they want to watch matches. With Octoshape, Turkish consumers will be able to enjoy a significantly improved user experience without buffering for high quality video and advanced features like digital video recording (DVR), preventing viewers from missing a moment.
Digiturk has elected to use Octoshape's Infinite HD-M federated multicast broadband TV platform for linear over-the-top (OTT) video distribution. This technology enables the quality, scale and economics of traditional broadcast technologies over the Internet. Telco and cable operators that are part of the Infinite HD-M federated network are able to receive signals via native IP Multicast in a way that allows them to easily manage large volumes of traffic without needing to upgrade their Internet capacity.
"We tested many technologies and service offerings to find the best quality experience for our audience," said Hatice Memiguven, Chief Officer of Technology and Operations, Digiturk. "Octoshape offered the best overall consumer viewing experience, including a pathway to enhanced functionality and the ability to scale our broadband audience in a sustainable fashion."
"We are honored to partner with Digiturk to further improve the overall content viewing experience of a brand as strong as Digiturk," said Michael Koehn Milland, CEO of Octoshape. "Infinite HD-M continues to underscore the benefits for large media broadcasters. Our unique combination of quality, scale and economics enables Digiturk to facilitate both the consumer experience and successful business models they require."
Octoshape's Infinite HD-M federated linear broadband TV ecosystem will continue to expand globally throughout 2012 in carefully planned phases adding content contribution partners, Tier 1 broadband providers, connected television manufacturers and conditional access providers.
Europe Moves to Aid Digital Music Industry
Excerpted from NY Times Report by Eric Pfanner
The European Commission plans to introduce legislation on Wednesday to bolster the digital music market in Europe by streamlining the methods of agencies that collect royalties on behalf of copyright holders.
Michel Barnier, the internal market commissioner, is expected to propose a bill aimed at resolving problems at the 250 collecting societies that operate in the European Union, some of which are holding back growth in digital music. The move follows the disclosure that some of these groups have lost money on risky investments or, in some cases, failed to pay royalties owed to rights holders.
"Collecting societies need to modernize their operations to meet the challenges of a fast-evolving digital economy," the commission says in a memo explaining the proposals. "An underlying problem is the insufficient transparency and control of the way collecting societies are managed."
It is not the first time that the commission has taken aim at the collecting societies, which gather about 6 billion euros, or $7.5 billion, annually from radio stations, restaurants, bars and other music users, and distribute the proceeds to authors, composers, and other rights holders. In 2008, lawmakers enacted legislation aimed at breaking down national barriers in the digital music business, making it possible for rights holders to issue pan-European licenses.
Yet cross-border licensing of music and other media content has not developed as quickly as Mr. Barnier would like, limiting consumer choice, hurting rights holders, and promoting copyright infringement as listeners seek alternate ways to obtain the music they want, the commission says. Only one legitimate digital music service, Apple's iTunes store, is available in all 27 EU member states and digital sales accounted for only 19 percent of recording industry revenue in the European Union in 2010, compared with 49 percent in the United States, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
The commission acknowledged that there were several reasons for this, but singled out collecting societies.
"The ability of collecting societies to efficiently deliver their services is increasingly being questioned, leading to a loss of trust and confidence in their services," the commission says in a written assessment.
Less than half the amount collected in royalties is distributed within the first year, and as much as 10 percent not until three years after collection, the commission says. Under the proposal, societies would have to disburse the money within one year.
In the interim between collection and distribution, rights holders complain, some societies have been making risky investments with the money. The commission says an Italian collecting society in 2008 lost 35 million euros in a "debt instrument" with the failed investment bank Lehman Brothers.
Veronique Desbrosses, General Director of Gesac, a Brussels-based group that represents European collecting societies, said the organization "welcomes the EU directive." But she disputed the notion that collecting societies were to blame for the problems of the digital music business.
She said European collecting societies gather more than 60 percent of the revenue collected worldwide by such groups, undermining the argument that the European societies are inefficient.
"We believe that we are already active in working to achieve the highest standards possible in transparency and efficiency," she said. "In some cases, these standards are already higher than what the commission is proposing."
Kelvin Smits, a spokesman for Younison, a group that represents artists, said the proposal would improve the workings of the digital market, but would not do enough to overhaul the offline segment, which still represents 95 percent of royalty collections in Europe.
Among other things, the bill would let collecting societies keep funds held on behalf of rights holders who cannot be located — after five years.
"If that would change, the good life would be over for the collecting societies," Mr. Smits said.
Lawmakers Warn FCC on Open Internet
Excerpted from Online Video Daily Report by Ross Fadner
At a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce's subcommittee on Communications and Technology on Tuesday, Republican lawmakers urged Federal Communications Commission Chairman (FCC) Julius Genachowski to close the Commission's docket to reclassify the Internet as a "telecommunications service," under Title II of the Communications Act.
Reclassifying the web as a "telecommunications service" rather than an "information service" would expand the FCC's power to regulate it. While the docket has been open since 2009, the agency has not yet taken any action. Genachowski said it would be "unusual" to close the proceeding, as the Commission is still accepting public comments on the issue.
The Hill's Brendan Sasso says that classifying the Internet under Title II would put the FCC's net-neutrality regulations, which bar Internet service providers from slowing down or blocking access to any website, on firmer legal ground.
Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL) said that closing the Title II docket would reaffirm to consumers and businesses that the Internet would remain open.
Genachowski disagreed that classifying the Internet under Title II would lead to government control of the web, saying that he believes in "no gatekeepers of the Internet, private or public."
Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai warned that leaving the docket open would only "further chill investment" in the sector.
The Communications and Technology subcommittee has also recently held hearings entertaining the idea that a United Nations agency should gain more control of the Internet.
Shimkus said lawmakers from both parties worry that greater international control over the web would stifle innovation and restrict freedom.
Coming Events of Interest
ICOMM 2012 Mobile Expo — September 14th-15th in New Delhi, India. The 7th annual ICOMM International Mobile Show is supported by Government of India, MSME, DIT, NSIC, CCPIT China and several other domestic and international associations. New technologies, new products, mobile phones, tablets, electronics goods, and business opportunities.
ITU Telecom World 2012 - October 14th-18th in Dubai, UAE. ITUTW is the most influential ICT platform for networking, knowledge exchange, and action. It features a corporate-neutral agenda where the challenges and opportunities of connecting the transformed world are up for debate; where industry experts, political influencers and thought leaders gather in one place.
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 - November 8th-9th in Santa Monica. CA. CCW:2012 will zero in on the latest advances in applying cloud-based solutions to all aspects of high-value entertainment content production, storage, and delivery; the impact of cloud services on broadband network management and economics; and evaluating and investing in cloud computing services providers.
Third International Workshop on Knowledge Discovery Using Cloud and Distributed Computing Platforms - December 10th in Brussels, Belgium. Researchers, developers, and practitioners from academia, government, and industry will discuss emerging trends in cloud computing technologies, programming models, data mining, knowledge discovery, and software services.
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