Streaming services provider Sonorous Networks re-emerged at the beginning of this year as Antfarm Network Technologies, following the desertion of its primary investor in 2000. The Antfarm has since modified its offering, and has been accredited as a Microsoft Windows Media Service Provider - the first in SA.
Jeff Fletcher, co-founder of the company, explains that while the Antfarm initially started out trying to do much the same as Sonorous Networks - selling distributed networking and streaming services - that market space has become somewhat commoditised.
"A lot of the ISPs are now selling streaming services, and some other companies with a little more financial muscle came in and started moving into the same area. We looked at the intellectual property side of things and decided to move into a number of emerging markets of digital rights management (DRM).
"We also had a couple of customers that came across with us, largely believing in our technical prowess rather than in [Sonorous Networks] itself. We`ve helped build a few proof-of-concept ideas with those people and those have now become products that we`re starting to sell.
"What we`re most proud of right now is the DRM work," says Fletcher.
Marek Dziembowski, co-founder of the company, explains the reasoning behind implementing DRM: "DRM is a way of helping people with sensitive information - something like a song, or a video presentation, or a movie - retain some kind of control over that media when it`s in a digital format. The DRM initiative allows you to encrypt audio and video media, and basically gives you a system by which you can apply certain usage rights. It`s quite a nice way for people with intellectual media property to retain it, while allowing them to distribute the media as widely as they want."
The Antfarm received Microsoft accreditation based largely on its groundbreaking work in terms of licence delivery.
Dziembowski notes: "According to a number of people, we`ve been the first to bring certain things to market, like encrypted video, licensed pre-delivery for both versions of the media players. We`ve also developed a number of different ways of delivering licences, which is probably the most important aspect of what we`re doing.
"Traditionally, a person will log on to a site and try to access some media, and that media is encrypted. Once he`s opened the media, he`ll download a big file that`s protected, and once it`s on his drive, when he tries to open it, it sends him off to a Web site. It`s a long and tedious process.
"What we`ve done is, for example if someone fulfils certain criteria, like pays with a credit card, or provides certain credentials, a licence is pre-delivered to his machine, so he doesn`t have to access the media first in order to receive the licence. We`ve also found a way of presenting new features in a hybrid system that can function across different platforms, different media player versions, and it basically makes the end-user process easier and more pleasant."
Fletcher notes: "One of the issues is to make the separation between the consumer and the corporate markets. From our side, the fun stuff is the consumer stuff - always. The corporate sector is more lucrative for us than B2C initiatives. We find more adoption in the corporate market, specifically in terms of corporate communication; streaming results presentations is in demand.
"The consumer side of things is going to take a lot longer to develop, because the business model doesn`t make sense. As long as bandwidth is paid for on a per megabyte basis, you`re never going to be able to compete successfully with television and radio in terms of cost per user."
Related stories:
Deals, portal ensure a resonant future for Sonorous
Sonorous Networks leaps into mainstream
Start-up brings clients streaming in
Share
