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Burst.com debuts Net technology, after 12-year wait

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CIOL Bureau
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Timna Tanners

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LOS ANGELES: When San Francisco-based Burst.com Inc. debuted on the Nasdaq

national market last week, it could have been taken for just another Internet

start-up, battling for recognition and respect.

But the small company was actually born 12 years ago, before the Net became a

mainstay in the world's vocabulary and the hype over dotcoms rose, then fell,

along with the stock prices.

Chairman and founder Richard Lang has been biding his time until more people

adopted broadband - the high-speed Internet access through which his company's

Burstware software thrives. Burstware's technology improves the quality of video

and audio transmission over the Net.

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Without widely available broadband, Burstware offered fewer benefits over

streaming technology, the current standard for sending data via the Net.

Burstware aims to offer television-like video quality, considered key to drawing

advertising revenue in cyberspace.

"It was started with a patent portfolio that would describe a solution

which would become relevant when broadband networks emerged," Lang said in

a phone interview. "We took an early leap, and we think we got our bet

right after 10 years of building technology."

Burst.com's technology works best over high-speed Internet connections,

gradually being more widely used through more mainstream adoption of broadband

connections, such as digital subscriber lines (DSL), cable modems, and T-1

lines.

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Just last year it began commercially offering Burstware, which transmits

packets of video and audio over the Net.

The software looks for alternative servers during network slowdowns or

glitches and stores data ahead of time in caches, which the company says leads

to better quality transmission. Streaming media has a smaller buffer that only

shields against short interruptions, Burst.com says.

"The quality has to be equal to TV or viewers and advertisers are not

going to pay for it. We have the key enabling technology for the killer

app," Lang said, referring to an application that would generate great

demand by enabling television-quality viewing over the Internet.

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The company says the bursts allow transmission over the Internet in what it

calls, "faster-than-real-time," and can even enhance the quality of

its competitors' systems.

Yet the key for Burst.com will be the extent to which users see value in its

technology and want to switch from more prevalent streaming video providers such

as RealNetwork's RealPlayer or Microsoft's Windows Media Player, said Gartner

group senior analyst Sujata Ramnarayan.

"The question is, does this provide a significant enough advantage so

people will want to change, even if they can already play (data) over

Windows?" she said.

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She noted the quality using Burst.com appeared better than current available

alternatives, but said it could not transmit live video.

Lang noted that his Burstware can enhance the quality of other video

streaming systems.

A robust Internet is essential for the bursting technology, as even the best

method for delivering video will be interrupted when a dial-up connection

crashes.

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The company aims to earn revenue by licensing its technology and by offering

upgrades and maintenance through fees to network providers. Also, providers can

host content, such as a video, on its network as a draw for clients.

The company has hosted multimedia content for rock band U2 and singer Neil

Young.

During its decade of focusing on research and development, Burst.com,

formerly called Instant Video Technologies, Inc., garnered 23 international

patents and nine domestically issued patents. It has another 12 patents pending.

Shares have been as high as $19-10/16 in the past year, and stood at $2-1/2

in midday trade on Friday, up 5/16 in light trade.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.

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