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Elemental Technologies has done a great job selling encoding appliances, becoming a force in the high volume H.264 transcoding market over the last few years. So when I saw that Elemental Technologies had released a white paper entitled, Software-Defined Video – a Game Changing Framework for the Video Marketplace, I was curious if this signaled a major strategy change. So, I contacted Elemental, who set up the following interview with Chief Marketing Officer Keith Wymbs.
I was targeting a 15-minute interview, but it ended up around 23 minutes. Below the video are the questions that I asked and the approximate time I asked them in the video.
Just so you know, Elemental did not sponsor this video in any way. A conversation with Keith seemed like an efficient way for me to understand the point of the white paper, and once Elemental agreed to set up the chat, it seemed simple enough to record and present it here. Enjoy.
Questions
Question: Keith, the white paper seemed to have two points; one about appliances built using ASICs vs. Off the Shelf CPUs and GPUs, the second about unified hybrid workflows that can operate on appliances, in private clouds and in the public cloud. Let’s address each point. You’ve always sold appliances based on OTS components; why did you adapt that approach (1:10)?
Question: Talk to me about the second point, unified hybrid workflows that can operate on appliances, in private clouds and in the public cloud. What does that look like architecturally (4:03)?
Question: I know the pricing model for appliance and cloud; what’s the pricing model for private cloud deployment (6:15)?
Question: Is a hybrid model an enduring market or just a stop along the way to completely cloud deployment (7:55)?
Question: It sounds like an appliance may be a better option if you can keep it active a good percentage of the time (11:04)?
Question: You talk about your cloud offering as being a Platform as a Service. How is that different from the Software as a Service model (11:57)?
Question: Can you summarize the advantages into bullet points (14:07)?
Question: You primarily serve very large publishers. In this market, are we past the tipping point for cloud deployment or are you still having to convince these customers that cloud is a necessary strategy (16:30)?
Question: Summing up, it seems like the white paper isn’t a shift in strategy as much as your explaining the value propositions of the strategies you’ve been working for the last few years. Is that correct (17:58)?
Question: So, elevator pitch time. In 15 seconds or less, why buy Elemental appliances over other hardware vendors (20:10)?
Question: How many other hardware vendors have the ability to deploy their core software over their own appliances, in private clouds and in the public cloud (20:50)?
