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IBM Watson Media launches a live-streaming app for the enterprise

While there are a number of live-streaming apps for consumers, the new IBM Video Streaming mobile application offers more secure, higher-quality video with administrative tools, IBM says.
Written by Stephanie Condon, Senior Writer

In recent years, video has become a common part of workplace communications. A number of quality videoconferencing tools exist, as well as tools that enable business leaders to broadcast town hall-style meetings to their geographically-dispersed employees. The latest application from IBM Watson Media takes the trend one step further, offering a secure, enterprise-ready platform for mobile live-streaming. 

The new IBM Video Streaming mobile application enables enterprise users to broadcast one-to-many live streamed videos. It offers features tailored for the enterprise, such as AI-powered automated closed captioning, which administrators can edit for clarity or contextual relevance. After a broadcast, businesses can use automatically-generated, advanced metadata to search for and index content. 

Businesses have full control over their video content, including its ingestion, transcription, storage, distribution and access. To keep information secure, administrators can grant individual access to specific employees. The mobile app, available on iOS and Android, also offers the kind of high-quality broadcast that's typically only achievable with professional production teams, IBM says. 

While there are a number of live-streaming apps for consumers, they don't offer adequate toolkits for the enterprise, David Mowrey, VP of Product and Development at IBM Watson Media, said to ZDNet. 

"This product really helps enterprises to securely deliver their corporate communications, end to end, all the way from a device to the consumers of the enterprise stream," he said. 

The application opens up both large and small opportunities for live-streaming, enabling a CEO to reach millions of partners and customers from the field, or facilitating a manager's broadcast to a 15-person team after a customer meeting. 

There's an expectation in just about every industry, across medium and large businesses alike, that video will be leveraged as a workplace tool, Mowrey said. However, "there are a lot of businesses that don't have full-service streaming. This broadcasting app really lowers the barriers for broadcasting tools and puts those capabilities in the hands of anybody with an iOS or Android device."

The IBM Video Streaming application complements IBM Watson Media's Enterprise Video Streaming solution, a live and on-demand streaming platform that connects global employees on desktop and laptop computers. That platform is used by customers in every industry, in geographies around the world, Mowrey said, including customers like Rodan + Fields, Herman Miller and Nvidia. 

IBM built its Watson Media business a few years ago around several acquisitions, primarily its acquisition of the live-streaming company Ustream. Catering to the media and entertainment industry along with the enterprise, Watson Media provides live streaming tools as well as AI-powered video analysis capabilities. 

"We're trying to enable our enterprise customer base to use video, not only to collaborate and broadcast," Mowrey said, "but also to be able to better monetize and solve problems within the organization. A lot of that is understanding the video content you have, that you're creating, and making it more useful." 

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