In this month's issue of Baseline magazine, Tony Kontzer highlights the rise of cloud computing and cloud-based services in his story "The Cloud's the Limit with Anything as a Service." Kontzer talks at length about the core issues surrounding these types of services, including the ability to manage spikes in demand. This is particularly important when it comes to online video, as more and more companies are incorporating video into their marketing mix via cloud-based services.
Kontzer references Kohler, a Brightcove customer, as an example of using cloud-based online video platforms effectively. Kohler decided a few years ago to work with Brightcove instead of investing in building its own online video infrastructure to support its more than 50 online properties on which video was a growing component. As John Engberg, Kohler's manager for global media and Web development notes, going with Brightcove was one-tenth of the cost of what it would have been to build and maintain an internal solution.
As Engberg points out, the decision to go with Brightcove has certainly paid off. In 2008 alone, visitors to Kohler sites watched 4 million videos on a variety of topics. Kohler also tapped Brightcove for its recent Save Water America campaign to raise awareness about water usage.
Kontzer sums it up best, noting Kohler's effort "demonstrates a model for future cloud adopters: tapping the cost efficiency of the cloud to create inexpensive, temporary public-education and fundraising campaigns."
Check out the full story here.