Streaming Media - August/September 2007 - (Page 26)

case study IBM Takes Webcasting to the Desktop IVT Studio lets users at IBM generate content in Windows Media and iTunes audio and video formats, and makes the content available on-demand after the live event. central management,” he says. “Without central management, corporations will not deploy an application like this. Central management provides the ability to determine where certain groups of people can put content, what type of content they can create, what templates they can use.” Another important part of central management is the ability to keep track of statistics. Pulier points to banks, for example, whose stringent regulations require them to track everything very precisely in a central way. “And that’s what our system does,” he says. “Those competitors of ours who have just a tool without a back end are really not competitors.” cost per user is halved, and if the audience was 1,000, the cost per user would be between $2 and $5. And imagine if 10,000 people see the webcast. The Future of Webcasting at IBM After completion of the pilot project a few months ago, IBM decided to go ahead and purchase IVT Studio. Kahan is currently implementing a full-fledged “production” version of the system that will open up webcasting to many more IBMers. “Our plan before the end of the year is to multiply up to several hundred or even thousand content creators,” says Kahan, “and the back end could eventually get as large as IBM itself.” He says that IBM is looking to enhance the product— doing things like making it more accessible to those who are hearing or sight impaired, for example. “And we want a lot more empowerment on the management of the content itself, empowering the user not just on the front end, but [in terms of] how to manage the back end content and do data mining. It’s pretty exciting what we’re planning.” Asked to predict which of the four usage categories will be the highest in percentage in the immediate future, Kahan says he doesn’t know. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a year from now we see another completely unexpected new usage category emerge. When you allow people to use communications systems open-endedly like this, sometimes you are surprised and delighted by the outcome.” Mark Fritz (markfritz@intergrafix.net) is a freelance author and contributing editor to StreamingMedia.com. Comments? Email us as letters@streamingmedia.com, or check the masthead for other ways to contact us. Real ROI Along with saving money by cutting man-hours wasted in ineffective meetings and saving money by lowering production costs (studios, crews, equipment, etc.), one of the other major ways in which IVT Studio delivered ROI to IBM was by reducing staff travel, says Kahan. One of the questions asked of IBM staffers on the pre-pilot survey was whether they expected to use webcasting in lieu of travel. About 40% of the IBM employees in the test group answered in the affirmative. But six months later, the number of people using webcasting to replace travel had increased to 50% (about 170,000 people). Another nice thing about IVT Studio is that it doesn’t cost much. “The system was inexpensive enough for us to recover our costs within one year,” says Kahan. And once it is in place, the more it is used, the greater the ROI. “As more people get on the system, the price per person per webcast goes down,” says Kahan. Let’s say, for example, that today a video webcast to 100 people costs between $2,000 and $5,000. When you increase the number of users to 200, the 26 STREAMING MEDIA August/September 2007 http://StreamingMedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Streaming Media - August/September 2007

Table of Contents Sweet Sixteen Letters to the Editor Technology and Business Trends IBM Takes Webcasting to the Desktop ROI in the EDU Bank Serves Espresso, Enterprise Video Online Video Advertising: Hit or Miss MLB’s Foul Bawl A Crash Course in Flash Video Newspapers in Multimedia Metamorphosis Webcasting Large Entertainment Events: Seeing Through the Hype Webcasting With Windows Media Can’t Start A Fire . . . A WiMAX Primer Mobile Video at Last Telestream Episode Pro Grass Valley ProCoder 3 Silverlight Is No Flash Killer

Streaming Media - August/September 2007

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