thePlatform a one-stop broadband video solution or bottomless money pit (PART II)?

Doug Fulton, President of Entertainment at Dave Networks, dropped me an email after reading my post today saying that Dave Networks pretty much does all that thePlatform claims it does, and more.  Well yes, that's true,  in part. The alliance formed out of thePlatform pretty much caters to the universe of needs out there and no one has been able to do that to my knowledge.  And if Ian Blaine, CEO the Platform, is right  (see PART I post) then those with online broadcast aspirations but with their own set of unique restrictions will be bypassing the fixed menus of companies like Brightcove, Dave, Narrowstep and Roo.  I wouldn't underestimate the nature of these unique restrictions often borne out of technical or contractual (e.g. content rights) or budgetary issues. 

So in PART II of this post, I've drawn up a little comparison chart of four notable providers namely Brightcove, Dave Networks, Narrowstep and Roo (I left out thePlatform because it theoretically should be able to do the lot):

Now, I wish I could simply have copied this comparison chart from one of the four's websites but one can always wish. Notably, few of these can provide live linear feed signal ingestion (i.e. they cannot capture a live broadcast).  And of course you'll have noticed one of the biggest factors that I've left out for a lack of data is the critical matter of cost (which inspired the cheeky title viz. "money pit" in the first place). If any of my colleagues has any data to share on price points for these services, I would encourage you to post it as a comment for all.

CrunchBase Information

Brightcove

Roo

Information provided by CrunchBase

Comments

[Tom Herman]

Interesting blog.... there are a lot of competitors to the platform (entriq, whiteblox, etc. come to mind, for instance). There are also lots of alternatives to roo, brightcove, narrowstep, etc.

thePlatform is very expensive, that's true, but their products are the
most mature from a web services, flexibility, etc perspective. I guess
you pay for maturity and flexibility of product as well as flexibility
pricing models.

[Kevin Foong]

Hey Tom, great to hear from you. You make a good point. I'm still curious about their relative price points though and it would be great if anyone out there could share some pricing info. Kevin