GLG News Analyses of the following article:

High-Def Options Vie With Blu-ray

view article

Published at: online.wsj.com

Blu-Ray Actors are moving on

March 3, 2009

Analysis by: GLG Expert Contributor

The Blu-Ray players market doesn't appear to be good as forecasted, so it's completely normal that are starting to ask what's going on.However, the principal actors of this market are making progress and the future of this technology may appear clearer in the near future.

Not Everyone Sold On Cisco Blade Server Plans

January 22, 2009

Analysis by: GLG Expert Contributor

It's no secret anymore that networking behemoth Cisco Systems is plotting to throw its hat into the blade server ring, going toe-to-toe against market heavyweights Dell, HP and IBM to rule the data center. When Channelweb.com confirmed Cisco blade server rumors last month, some solution providers welcomed the idea with open arms. "We think it's a good thing for the market, for us and for Cisco," Jim Kavanaugh, CEO of World Wide Technology, a solution provider and Cisco partner, said in December. "We think it's a big space that has a lot of growth opportunities both short term and long term. I've got quite a bit of confidence in Cisco's management, and when they put their minds to something they make it work. It's going to be interesting how it plays out.

Is SSD Technology Ready for the Enterprise?

January 15, 2009

Analysis by: GLG Expert Contributor

Solid State Disks (SSDs) are gaining attention for the consumer and enterprise marketplaces. In this article, Dennis Martin, Demartek President, discusses some of the benefits of SSDs, explains the differences between consumer and enterprise SSDs, and addresses adoption of SSDs in the enterprise datacenter.

Samsung Intros Enterprise Solid-State Drives

January 7, 2009

Analysis by: GLG Expert Contributor

Samsung Electronics on Tuesday unveiled its first enterprise-class solid-state drive aimed specifically at high-performance applications. The new drive, unveiled at the Storage Visions Conference in Las Vegas, offers 100-GB capacity and about ten times the performance of standard 15,000-rpm drives, the company said. Samsung grows an ever-longer list of storage vendors hoping to make solid-state drive technology ubiquitous this year. The new SS805 2.5-inch form factor drive reads data sequentially at 230 MB per second and writes sequentially at 180 MB per second. It features an 8-channel controller, improved NAND flash and new drive firmware, all of which were developed by Samsung. The drive also includes technology to allow all data in the process of being stored within the SSD to be preserved in the event of a power outage.

Blu-ray's competitiveness depends less on picture quality than on the future of the studios' sequential release model

December 17, 2008

Analysis by: GLG Expert Contributor

The issue of Blu-ray's competitiveness with other delivery formats such as HD broadcasting has less to do with perceived quality than with the Hollywood studios' sequential release model, which generally makes the best movies available on optical disks ahead of their availability on other delivery systems.This model is slowly changing towards one that uses virtual delivery, rather than the distribution of physical objects such as DVDs and Blu-ray disks - but the studios will take some years to make the switch, since there is a risk it will impact their revenues from disk sales and rental. Another constraint is that DVRs need to be ubiquitous for the virtual delivery model to work, although this requirement could be loosened if easier ways of connecting PC hard drives to TV screens were devised.

Bhanu KapoorConsultant/OwnerMimasic

Blue-ray vs HD-DVD is not the same battle as VHS vs Betamax

December 16, 2008

The article questions the importance of DVD players going forward and that's central to the Blue-ray vs HD-DVD battle. It is indeed no longer about DVD players anymore. And the advantages offered by Blue-ray over HD-DVD (15 GB vs 25 GB storage for Blue-ray) isn't significant enough to determine which format wins the game eventually. And most likely, no single format will win the game this time. In a world with ever increasing speeds of data communications and increasing performance of computing technologies, the software and not the hardware will be increasingly playing the video content and that means all competing formats will have an equal chance. Devices like Apple's iTV or simply your computer are on their way to become the storage medium of choice and software the natural choice for player. The advances in connection bandwidth will determine the quality of video that will make its way to homes and it favors 720p resolution as the next candidate for adoption.   

Internet Streaming Video May Shorten Blu-Rays Life

December 12, 2008

Analysis by: GLG Expert Contributor

1. Streaming of movies (and other content) over the Internet will grow in the coming years. 2. High speed digital services to the home (DSL and cable modem) continue to increase. 3. High definition movies can be viewed at home with out the need to rent a DVD or Blu-Ray DVD.   This is an important future direction that could shorten the life of Blu-Ray or at the very least lessen the impact Blu-Ray could have in the home.  

Blu-Ray HD Market is Slipping

December 12, 2008

Analysis by: GLG Expert Contributor

The uncertainty in the Blu-ray market is the result of three primary factors: the late "victory" of Blu-ray, the proliferation of online HD content and display technology, and the current state of the economy. If the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray had been settled before this year, then there would likely have been a larger installed base of Blu-ray players, and the cost of the players would now be lower than they are.  Secondly, both HD content and internet bandwidth availability have made the delivery of HD more accessible than ever with what consumers already have or what they will definitely buy (such as and HD capable TV and high-bandwidth internet).   These two factors combined with the current economic downturn result in lower prospects for the HD Blu-Ray media and player markets than might otherwise have been the case.

BluRay Has Competition - But Will Still Succeed

December 12, 2008

Analysis by: GLG Expert Contributor

The market is still in the middle of the SD-to-HD switch, and the marketplace is determining which HD delivery platforms will succeed.  When DVD was introduced, the only competition for local storage playback was VHS - and DVD is clearly superior.  BluRay is entering a different marketplace, where DVD players are still competitive for many consumers (the 75% that don't have HD displays yet), and where there are competitive sources for HD content.