A loose consortium of nearly 50 companies have agreed to standardize their online video products and services on technology from thePlatform, a "white-label" video management and publishing firm based in Seattle.
The group includes companies such as AT&T, Cisco, Akamai, Apple, Microsoft, Verizon Wireless, MobiTV, YouTube, and Yahoo. The group's purpose is to give companies looking to publish videos either online or on the mobile Internet choices of pre-integrated multi-vendor products rather than using single-vendor products to achieve those ends.
"As the market matures, customers want to pick the best heterogeneous solution where they have their choice of payment processors, content delivery networks etc.," said Marty Roberts, vice president of product marketing for thePlatform, which is spearheading the consortium.
Online and mobile video delivery is made up of a number of moving parts including storage, delivery, encoding, management, business policy, and pricing among other things. The video could be short-form like typical YouTube fare, movies, or video ads.
Many of the current service providers in the video management business offer almost all of the various parts of the management process, but that is changing.
"A year ago, every player in this market was claiming that they could handle all a client's needs, and buyers did not yet know how to evaluate competitors," said James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research. "The market is more mature now and thePlatform is seizing on that maturity."
ThePlatform, a former VC-backed startup which was acquired by cable operator Comcast in 2006, acts as a kind of behind-the-scenes director fitting the pieces of the overall process.
The company, which competes with a number of others, including Brightcove, Maven Networks, and Extend Media, offers its consortium partners software development kits, engineering support, and training.