A group of leading technology titans on Tuesday launched the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), an effort to accelerate the market adoption of open standards for streaming rich media over Internet Protocol (IP).

ISMA, a group of industry leaders in content management, distribution infrastructure and media streaming, have joined together to promote open standards for developing end-to-end media streaming solutions. The founding companies believe that their collaborative efforts will accelerate the broad market adoption of open standards and interoperability, while encouraging the development of competitive solutions.

In addition to the founders like Apple, Cisco Systems, Kasenna, Philips and Sun Microsystems, the board of the initiative also includes: Advis, Inc., Analog Devices Inc., Axis Communications, AB, Bit Band Technologies Inc., Bright Alley B.V., Envivio, e-Vue, Inc., Informix Media 360, iVAST, Inc., Luxxon, Macrovision Corporation, Mighty Eyes, Minerva Networks, nCUBE, Network Appliance, Optibase, PACKETVIDEO Corporation, Pix Stream Incorporated, Sea Change International, SGI, Sigma Designs, Inc., Streaming21, Inc., VCON, and Virage, Inc.

But perhaps the most notable isn't so much who is in the alliance but who isn't. Notably absent, so far, are streaming giants Real Networks, Microsoft, Akamai, and iBEAM, to name a few. Is a streaming alliance effective without them? Perhaps...perhaps not... Still, streaming is in sore need of some standards.

"The exciting promise of streaming media can be realized only if we have a single standard for consumers, service providers, network operators, equipment suppliers and content providers," said William J. Raduchel, Chief Technology Officer of America Online Incorporated. "Having a standard, interoperable implementation will remove many of the existing barriers to delivering exciting new offerings to consumers and businesses."

To date, the prohibitive costs associated with deploying streaming media services to support the current disparate formats has prohibited many service providers and other adopters from taking full advantage of existing market opportunities. The emerging class of Internet appliances will benefit from a single standard by enabling an 'author once, play anywhere' model for content distribution.

"ISMA's plans to create a standards based, bandwidth scalable, player neutral, streaming media format is very attractive to companies such as ON24 for the promise it holds: to make streaming media as straightforward as sending email messages," said Rajiv Puranik, vice president of engineering, ON24.

Standards already exist for the fundamental pieces required to deploy streaming media solutions over IP. The ISMA will adopt elements of existing standards and contribute to those still in development in order to publish and promote a systemic, end-to-end specification, which enables cross-platform and multi-vendor interoperability. The first specification from the ISMA will define an implementation agreement for streaming MPEG-4 video and audio over IP networks.

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ISMA founders have been working to develop an initial specification for MPEG-4 over IP, which will be circulated for review and input at the first formal meeting in February 2001. The meeting is open to any company interested in becoming an ISMA member. Upon completion of specifications, the ISMA will actively educate and promote the specifications to developers and those seeking to deploy rich media streaming solutions. The ISMA web site (www.ISM-Alliance.org) will publish completed specifications and distribute information related to all of the Alliance's activities.

"A standard such as MPEG-4 would solve many issues facing the industry today such as the ability for consumers to play any format with a single player and in general, make it easier to offer many video related services. It would also benefit content providers who would not have to encode at different bit rates and formats," said Sujata Ramnarayan, senior analyst, GartnerGroup, Inc. The Alliance's ongoing work areas include: reliable quality of service, digital rights management and billing as well as other technologies and services the marketplace identifies as being critical elements to a complete end-to-end solution. In all cases, ISMA's efforts will revolve around open standards and interoperability.