"Therefore, business to business (B2B) IP Media will continue to provide the major thrust for the industry through 2001. As companies develop and install B2C and B2B IP Media content, the growth in demand of IP media hosting and network connectivity services should track in parallel. Meantime, traditional ISPs are quickly jumping on the ASP bandwagon as a means to survive and grow in the highly competitive ISP service business.

"Most media industry veterans and observers believe that IP Media is already well down the path to personalized media channels (or "what I want, when I want it") for B2C and B2B. IP Media will continue to become an integral part of business and entertainment. One of the big issues for big media (B2C), especially cable, is how fast to reallocate its valuable bandwidth and media assets to IP Media. Because the bandwidth demand is there, cable knows it can re-deploy its valuable bandwidth. Yet, it is worried about stealing viewers from its digital video services."

In Conclusion

Schultz's report sums it up this way:

"For ISPs, corporate Enterprises, cable and wireless carriers, and every part of the IP media food chain, the big story this year is IP Media edge servers, caching, and other QoS (Quality of Service) products. Expect this part of the evolution to continue for at least four years. The other big story is that every stage of the IP media food chain already has some old and some "dot com" elements that are quickly merging, similar to "click and mortar" companies! This blending of old and new elements should help contain some of the risks being absorbed by the many pure-play "dot com" companies in 2000-2001; and help the IP media food chain market sectors grow faster and more profitably than many unproven investment opportunities.

"That all being said, 2000-2004 will see lots of mergers and consolidations, along with a rapid growth of new companies and new ventures."

Well, we could have guessed that last statement. But there's a lot more less obvious jewels in this 252-page report that can help you be the gobbler and not the gobbled in the streaming food chain.

Definitely, worth it's weight in gold...