When I asked the question, what Microsoft does with its $7 billion R&D budget, I got a lot of flack. However, this morning, I did realize one thing they did not spend any money on - digital image libraries. For that, it turned to Beon Media, a 21-month-old start-up founded by Scott Lipsky, formerly of Amazon.com and Avenue A.
Beon Media had “created a novel way to display famous artwork and photographs on flat-screen televisions. Earlier this year, Lipsky radically changed the focus of the startup when Microsoft chose the company’s digital-image gallery to be prominently featured in next month’s release of the Windows XP Media Center. Before the deal with Microsoft, Beon Media was selling a device to businesses that allowed them to display high-resolution images on plasma television screens. The King County Library installed the system, as did the law firm of Black Lowe & Graham, creating a revolving digital gallery of famous photographs and paintings from artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet and Ansel Adams.(Seattle PI)
Actually if you look at Beon Media, you realize that we are so early in the convergence game that small start-ups can create strong positions in niches, and position themselves for future acquisitions by giants. (The New Road to Riches, Business 2.0)
2 comments so far
11:32 PM PT
I saw Gates speak, as the Corbis founder, at an Infotrends event back in 1999. He spoke on the interactivity of images and the coming of the day when you would be able to change the pictures at your house - using Corbis images - to have new paintings and photographic art throughout the house.
So, Gates was right about the convergence of images into the household; the presentation was about how Corbis would be the engine for photography, and some “unknown” company would be the provider of the technology.
Not sure if he was thinking of Beon back then.
9:14 AM PT
we now know that the unknown provider of technology is previously unknown company called beon.. brilliant.
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