The power and potential of the Web has likely never been more evident than it is today – reshaping the way consumers live and enterprises do business on an almost daily basis. Some telling indicators of this include:
- Cloud services revenues are expected to grow to $44.2B in 2013 (from $17.4B in 2009), according to IDC research.
- Netflix streaming video downloads outnumbered DVD rentals this year – the first time in the company’s history; and in fact, Netflix streaming traffic is now the largest source of U.S. Internet traffic during peak evening hours.
- Texting is growing faster than mobile voice or face-to-face communication among teenagers.
As we continue to shift more of our personal lives and business online, the underlying infrastructure and networks supporting these applications and services are taking on new significance. Availability and performance are key to a high-quality customer experience and can directly impact the operations and financial performance of all web-reliant businesses.
Take Netflix’ recent network outage: to compensate for the nearly three-hour loss of service, during which subscribers were unable to use its “Watch Instantly” streaming video service, Netflix offered customers a 2% credit. Assuming the lowest subscription level of $7.99/month for its more than 15 million subscribers, this equals a potential payout – or loss to Netflix – of nearly $2.4 million. Or, consider a few recent enterprise IT surveys: 97% of IT managers in a CDW poll said network disruptions last year had “detrimental effects” on their business productivity; and 65% of IT managers in IT EXPO 2010 research said that an IP network outage would be more damaging to their business than losing telephone service.
The goal of “The Internap Slant” is to leverage that unique knowledge and provide perspective and opinions on related industry news and trends. We’re looking forward to your comments, suggestions and other input. Up next – IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. We’ll explore the subtle yet confusing differences in these terminologies.
