The company is targeting enterprise businesses that wish to deliver messaging to employees, customers or partners in a cost-efficient way. As a result, BurstPoint’s VCP suite includes a number of products designed for enterprises to capture, manage and distribute live and on-demand video to various sites and company locations. Elements of the product suite include BurstPoint VCP Manager, Encoder, Conference Point, Delivery Node and Display Engine, each of which is designed to handle a certain aspect of delivery or distribution.

BurstPoint is leveraging assets it acquired from bankrupt video conferencing startup Starbak earlier this year. Starbak had a rocky history, including being acquired by a private investment firm in 2007 and buying out that investor’s shares in 2009, before being swallowed whole by BurstPoint in June.

The startup says it has made significant upgrades to the Starbak system in creating the BurstPoint VCP. According to BurstPoint VP of Marketing David Safaii, the VCP suite has fault tolerance and redundancy built in that wasn’t in the Starbak product, and has added a “virtual delivery node” to offload video to a content delivery network for Internet video. While BurstPoint has retained some of Starbak’s customers, it has also signed on new customers of its own.

BurstPoint is backed by Windspeed Ventures, which led the startup’s Series A financing round. BurstPoint wouldn’t say how much it’s raised in total, but the company has brought in at least $1.1 million as part of an initial round of venture financing, according to an SEC filing. Along with the financing, Windspeed partners John Bullock and Dan Bathon are on BurstPoint’s Board of Directors.

BurstPoint’s efforts to capture the enterprise market for video conferencing, webcasting, streaming and delivering digital signage comes at the same time that industry heavyweight Adobe has announced a new version of its Flash Media Server focused squarely on the enterprise. With support for IP multicast and a peer-to-peer technology for more efficient delivery of video both behind enterprise firewalls and throughout the broader Internet, Adobe’s Flash Media Server 4 could pose a serious competitive threat to BurstPoint.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: Brewing a Better Web Video Experience (subscription required)

Luckily, we can still follow all the happenings in real time, thanks to an unprecedented number of live streams from Fashion Week. Here’s the entire schedule, complete with links to each and every stream (all times Eastern):

Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010

• Vena Cava, MAC & MILK, 12:00 p.m.
• Christian Siriano, Fashion at Lincoln Center, 2:00 p.m.
• Rachel Roy, designer, interviewed by AP Live Fashion at Four, 4:00 p.m.
• Jen Kao, MAC & MILK, 6:00 p.m.
• Concept Korea, Fashion at Lincoln Center, 7:00 p.m.
• Billy Reid, Mandy Coon, LNA, Kimberly Ovitz & Made Her Think,  MAC & MILK, 7:00 p.m.
• Richie Rich, Fashion at Lincoln Center, 9:oo p.m.

Friday, Sept. 10, 2010

• Peter Som, MAC & MILK, 9AM
• BCBGMAXAZRIA Fashion at Lincoln Center, 10:00 a.m.
• Costello Tagliapierta, Frank Tell, Julian Louie, Tim Hamilton Redux and George Esquivel, MAC & MILK, 3PM
• Erin Wasson, model, interviewed by AP Live Fashion at Four, 4:oo p.m.
• Nicole Miller Spring 2011, 5:oo p.m.
• Juicy Couture (Fifth Avenue) with Erin Fetherston, Fashion’s Night Out, 6:00 p.m.
• Nine West (Fifth Avenue) with Joss Stone and the Vintage America Collection, Fashion’s Night Out, 7:00 p.m.
• Ralph Lauren (West Broadway/SoHo) with Janelle Monae, Jessica Alba, Andre Leon Talley, Fashion’s Night Out, 7:00 p.m.
• Academy of Art University Fashion Week Live Stream, 8:00 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 11, 2010

• Cynthia Rowley, designer, interviewed by AP Live Fashion at Four, 4:00 p.m.

Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010

• Derek Lam Fashion Week  Live Stream 10:00 a.m.
• DKNY Fashion Week Live Stream 1:00 p.m.
• Tommy Hilfiger, designer, interviewed by AP Live Fashion at Four, 4:00 p.m.
• Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Week Live Stream 8:00 p.m.

Monday, Sept. 13, 2010

• Carlos Miele Fashion Week Live Stream 11:00 a.m.
• Diesel Black Gold Spring 2011, 12:00 p.m.
• Donna Karen New York Fashion Week Live Stream 2:00 p.m.
• Frederic Fekkai, iconic hair stylist, interviewed by AP Live Fashion at Four, 4:00 p.m.
• Betsey Johnson Fashion Week Live Stream 6:00 p.m.
• Perry Ellis Fashion Week Live Stream 7:00 p.m.

Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010

• Badgley Mischka Fashion Week Live Stream, 10:00 a.m.
• Mark Badgley & James Mischka, designers behind Badgley Mischka, interviewed by AP Live Fashion at Four, 4:00 p.m.

Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2010

• Michael Kors Fashion Week Live Stream 10:00 a.m.
• Nanette Lepore Fashion Week Live Stream 11:00 a.m.
• Georgina Chapman & Karen Craig, the team behind Marchesa, interviewed by AP Live Fashion at Four, 4:00 p.m.
• Odd Molly Fashion Week Live Stream 5:00 p.m.
• Anna Sui Fashion Week Live Stream 6:00 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010

• Ralph Lauren Spring 2011, 10:oo a.m.
• Isaac Mizrahi Fashion Week Live Stream 12:00 p.m.
• Mary Alice Stephensen, stylist, interviewed by AP Live Fashion at Four, 4:00 p.m.

We are going to update this post as more links come in, please check back often.

The release didn’t mention TV Everywhere by name, but ExtendMedia has been busy working on solutions that allow media companies to deliver their programming to PCs, mobile devices, set-top boxes and game consoles. The company signed up AT&T, Bell Canada and Poland’s Onet.pl as customers.

TV Everywhere was the industry’s favorite buzz word last year, and a number of operators as well as cable networks from Comcast to HBO have rolled out dedicated offerings since, but consumers have yet to jump onto these services en masse. However, it looks like ExtendMedia’s vision of TV Everywhere goes far beyond what’s being offered today. From their blog:

“In 2006 Comcast bought the software infrastructure (thePlatform), and then they launched an aggressive IP network infrastructure initiative (Project Excalibur). Now with the NBCU acquisition, they control a sufficient wealth of premium content that, when combined with web content, will be enough to launch a meaningful “over the top” consumer offering. When they can’t grow their traditional business (already the case — telephone services have been powering their meager growth for the last few years) they will have the all the ingredients to distribute video over broadband – in and outside Comcast’s cable footprint – and it won’t need anyone’s permission. The new growth driver will be a broadband distributed service to new geographic markets at a lower price point. At the outset it wouldn’t have all the programming customers desire — shows from ABC or CBS, for example — but it would have enough content to drive eyeballs and attention away from subscription cable services.”

We have been talking for a while about the emerging idea of virtual MSOs and network operators. Predicting that Comcast will be the first one to make a major move in this space is pretty bold, but it’s only a question of time before someone does make a move.

Of course, such a move could have substantial effects on Cisco’s set-top box business, but company executives have been talking about a third wave of IP-based video services that go beyond the domains of service providers for a while now. In other words: Tomorrow’s TV Everywhere may not look at all like today’s TV Everywhere – and Cisco wants to have the resources to be ready for what’s next.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: New Business Models For Pay TV Services (subscription required)

Losing user data is the ultimate nightmare for anyone who manages a site’s web operations and architecture, agreed the members of the panel devoted to web ops management, which was moderated by Facebook VP of Technical Operations Jonathan Heiliger. MySpace’s Richard Buckingham, who’s VP of Tech Ops for that social networking site, has experienced this first-hand. Though Buckingham said MySpace restored the data from its backup and the site was only affected for a few hours, it took extra precautions to make sure it was better prepared in case another error happened. “Since that incident, we’ve built out stronger snap restore and geographical replication of data,” he said.

To protect against using loser losing user data, Microsoft classified it into three buckets — high, medium and low business impact — and built three different data strategies around them, said the company’s GM of Global Networking Services, Najam Ahmad.

On the innovation side of web infrastructure, MySpace is particularly interested in the development of flash technology. “Fusion-io is the product we’ve been looking at and it’s pretty groundbreaking and revolutionary,” said Buckingham. “It’ll be exciting to see how that changes.” However, unlike Yahoo, Google and Microsoft, who all said IPv6 technology will be adopted within the next 2-3 years, MySpace isn’t interested in it for now.

“We don’t care; it’s not a business priority right now,” said Buckingham. “When it is, we will deal with it.”

Finally there are the challenges that result from mergers and acquisitions, which largely involve figuring out the best way to integrate two companies’ infrastructure. Yahoo VP of Infrastructure and Operations Strategy Raj Patel said migrating the agility of a startup into an established business’ massive architecture is best done methodically so that the innovation of the site isn’t affected. Microsoft’s Ahmad said the company decides whether to merge various types of infrastructure on a case-by-case basis. “Sometimes we integrate (acquired companies’ infrastructure) and sometimes we don’t,” he said, but noted the majority of the technology Microsoft builds is, not surprisingly, Windows-based.

Video of the panel is here:

Photo by James Duncan Davidson.

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Chiu, who started working with IBM’s cloud computing team three years ago, said IBM has made a major investment in its cloud push. IBM took a startup approach and let its employees incubate the company’s cloud technology. Chiu led IBM’s Blue Cloud project and talked about the success of the company’s recent collaboration with various international clients in Vietnam, South Africa, China and Qatar. He said cloud computing provides a way for companies to efficiently serve clients even when they lack resources and skilled employees.

Chiu said its clients’ reaction to its IBM CloudBurst product (a pre-integrated set of hardware, storage, virtualization and networking) has been positive and clients are stunned that it can install in just one hour. However, Chiu acknowledged that businesses will not it adopt its cloud computing services overnight.

Video of the mininote is here:

Photo by James Duncan Davidson.

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“It’s a function of the age of the partner in the firm,” offered Peter Fenton of Benchmark. The issue is, IT is always afraid losing control and not being able to provision and manage, said Ping Li of Accel.

What the VCs did agree on is that they see opportunity to invest in infrastructure companies, especially — and here’s the kicker — if they’re not capital intensive. So in essence, most of them want to invest in companies that run on top of Amazon.

Some opportunities for investment? Security and liability issues in the cloud, said Navin Chaddh of Mayfield. Security and identity management issues, agreed Li. Analytics, said Jim Smith of MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures. Benchmark is looking for companies that make services more like Google and Facebook, the “consumerization of technology,” said Fenton. But “if you’re doing things that require tens of millions of dollars to achieve success, it could be a suicide mission,” he added.

Where there might not be an opportunity, said Fenton, is in companies that sell to Amazon, which is bringing the margins down in Wal-Mart-like fashions. “Selling to service providers is a tough business,” agreed Li.

One open question is how open source will affect the cloud. It’s an effective way to get out in the marketplace and acquire customers. And it also might be the best way to compete with giants like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, said Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg on a previous panel. Open APIs and delivering apps in app stores is an opportunity to make money, said Renu Raman of Tallwood Ventures. The “freemium” model — in which the core is not open source but the basic version is out there — shows promise, said Chaddha.

Video of the panel is here:

Photo by James Duncan Davidson.

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Although Cisco fired the first shot with its Unified Computing System, HP has long held the keys to a successful server line and an equally successful — and often under-rated — ProCurve networking line. And while Cisco’s first server was chassis-based — akin to its current switch and router products, its most recent announcement includes support for 1U and 2U rack-mounted servers, the kind HP has been shipping for years, along with Dell, IBM, Supermicro, and many more.

I have long felt that the architectural migration to scale out computing, using lots of inexpensive rack-mounted servers, lacked industry emphasis on the networking aspects of those configurations. Anyone who has seen a hastily assembled server rack knows how chaotic the cabling can be. Beyond the physical plant, as more CPUs and nodes fill the data center, the networking elements quickly gain in importance, from managing intelligent switching and routing, to accurately provisioning bandwidth, to ensuring efficient scale.

Perhaps HP was gearing up for this when it appointed David Donatelli, hired away from EMC, to executive vice president of servers, storage and networking. Unfortunately, the injunction EMC pursued over a non-compete agreement will keep Donatelli from storage until lifted, but he can certainly stay fully occupied battling Cisco with servers and networking.

Meanwhile, IBM and Dell need to figure out whether they plan to step into the networking ring. IBM has alluded to partnerships with Juniper on cloud computing initiatives, and is known to have a strong relationship with Brocade (now owner of Foundry Networks’ successful Ethernet switching business). Dell is focused on the build-out of large-scale data centers, so it seems inevitable that at some point, they will need to own more of the dollars from the networking sale as well.

Cisco and HP will claim that their tightly coupled solutions offer the best of all worlds to customers. In many cases, I expect they will. But in the past, the data center demarcation between servers and networks has fostered a vibrant ecosystem of devices and appliances that communicated effectively and interoperated relatively seamlessly. Could a tightening of single solutions forfeit this openness?

In the primary infrastructure tiers of server, networking and storage, the interesting battles have always been between them, rather than within. The single sourcing of servers and networking from Cisco and HP mark the first phase of the battle plans. Time will tell who this benefits most and if the story will continue to include storage leaders EMC and NetApp.

Gary Orenstein is the author of “IP Storage Networking: Straight to the Core,” host of TheCloudComputingShow.com, and was a co-founder of Nishan Systems (now part of Brocade).

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“The landscape is always heterogeneous,” he said, repeating multiple times throughout the conversation the admonition, “One size doesn’t fit all.”

In some cases, a cloud solution makes sense; in others, a more traditional one. In some cases, a private cloud makes sense; in others, a public cloud offers a better benefit. SAP aims to offer software that helps all these systems together. And so interoperability should be a key priority for any enterprise cloud solution; a lock-in approach is less likely to succeed.

Even with pervasive electricity, Sikka pointed out, people still carry around batteries. Not for any lack of electricity, but because some things are always local, and some things are better shared.

Video of the chat is here:

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But Ellison’s view on cloud computing isn’t the only thing that’s changed. With the rise of Twitter, Benioff said, more customers are demanding the ability to “make and develop in real-time,” and companies should be prepared to deliver on that demand. He warned that companies that don’t will “not be tolerated by a customer much longer.”

With the flux of traffic on social-network sites following the Iranian election, it’s clear that real-time technology is having social implications around the world, Benioff said. He characterized CNN’s tweeting about the protests in Iran as “spectacular.” Benioff said, “That’s real-time information in a social environment, (and) you can apply that to your company, too.”

Benioff noted that many chief information officers he meets don’t use Facebook and Twitter, which negatively impacts a company’s business. “Corporations have to step it up in terms of integrating with these real-time systems,” he said.

When it comes to running a successful technology company, Benioff said, the key to success is happy customers who will recommend your business. (He recently wrote about a book about the first 10 years of Salesforce.com.) “You’ve got to get customers selling for you,” he said. “I don’t think customers listen to vendors anymore — I think they listen to each other.”

Although Benioff wouldn’t definitively say that the rise of cloud computing has wiped out software, he noted that companies are making the move toward the cloud because its cheaper, elastic, and runs more efficiently. “When you talk to these CEOs, they’re looking to reduce cost and reduce risk,” he said. “When we’ve looked at recent large transactions that we’ve done, a lot of those were driven around speed, low risk, and customers needed an immediate return.”

Video of the keynote is here:

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In a decade, the panelists, and members of the audience, said they hope that the bandwidth discussion moves away from focusing on speed — basically the speed is so high it’s no longer an issue — and moves towards the user interface and applications. In that world, when as much bandwidth as possible is readily and instantly available, service providers could start offering “broadband as a service.” David Yen, EVP and GM of the Data Center Business Group, Juniper Networks, thinks broadband as a service is on its way as service providers face a challenging market of escalating traffic and flat sales. Service providers need to offer more services to recoup the investment of the network buildout, said Yen, and “broadband as a service” can provide that. As soon as it does get here it will be “enormously valuable,” noted AT&T’s Ford.

But in reality, it could take a lot longer than a decade for instant, all-you-can-eat broadband. Internet service providers, infrastructure makers, and web services companies have been saying the same thing for years and there are a variety of challenges. One of the biggest hurdles right now for instant access is the transport layer, said Michelle Munson, President Co-founder Aspera. We have ways to engineer around the transport bottleneck but it’s still a limitation when it comes to massive data sets like those that come from an industry like genomics, Munson said. Mark Taylor, VP Product Management Content Delivery and Vyvx, Level 3 Communications, thinks it will take time for the service providers to build out the networks so that they reach everywhere, but as costs come down the buildout will speed up.

Whatever technical and market problems, it’s all about quality of service, said Juniper’s Yen — bandwidth, reliability and security will all be equally important (and leagues better) in a decade. And sometimes, it’s just not about the actual size of the bandwidth at all. Arista’s Duda pointed out since a Mack truck filled with magnetic tapes has a massive amount of bandwidth, why not move data around via truck? Cause that’s an issue for latency, ie it takes a whole heckofa long time.

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