Timna Tanners
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.