IBM remakes content distribution with Cisco

IBM announced a new digital media solution today called the Digital Media Delivery Solution that makes the technology more accessible to a broader base of customers, including service providers looking to provide streaming video services to their customers.

Teaming with Cisco and other technology partners including Media Publisher Inc (MPI,) IBM will market an integrated solution for content delivery, content management and commerce to both enterprises and carriers.

While the partners are bringing the solution, which they will unveil at Supercomm next week, to the enterprise initially, “there is a huge opportunity for managed services using this model,” said Mike Maas, vice president of marketing for IBM. “The technology and capability are exactly [transferable] to service providers that want to offer these types of services to the enterprise.”

Service providers also can use the solution for internal purposes, he added. DMDS is a more specific substantiation of IBM’s Digital Media Factory, which is a comprehensive framework architecture for creating, managing and distributing digital media. “Like our service provider delivery platform is for telcos,” Maas said.

The solution can leverage existing network architectures as well as high-bandwidth applications such as enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and streaming media using store, search, view, collaborate, purchase and download an delivery functions.

In addition to its planning and support services, IBM supplies its DB2 content manager, WebSphere digital media enabler, Tivoli storage manager and IBM eServers. DMDS is offered with three media publishing and delivery options: Media Publisher from MPI for control and delivery, WebSphere digital enabler for access to media in an e-commerce environment and WebSphere Portal for interaction with external applications and processes.

The integrated package is meant to provide for easier adoption in the marketplace. “We hear from the market that they appreciate how comprehensive Digital Media factory is, but they need a way to get started in a little more prescriptive fashion,” Maas said. “So we pulled in and pre-integrated products focused in distributing rich media that brings it down to the next level and makes it easier for new customers to get their hands around.” At approximately $200,000 for a typical installation, Maas said the value swamps the cost because the value is in making it easy for the customer to get started. “And companies deploying rich media or digital media solutions are seeing pretty marked improvement in their ability to conduct business,” he said.