Reflect Systems tackles corporate Web casting

Reflect Systems recently unveiled a new combination of creation/management tools, servers and hosting designed to take IT out of the corporate Webcast business, allowing business users to create and push a rich media presentation to an internal group or the outside world.

The new ReflectNet offering enables content creation, management and delivery inside a corporate firewall, and ReflectWeb is a hosting service for delivering content over the Internet to third parties. ReflectNet consists of ReflectStudio, a free tool for capturing video, slides and other presentation material; RelectManager, a portal application for centrally managing content; and ReflectEdge, a remote cache for serving content to far flung users. The combination of Reflect Manager and ReflectEdge create a mini-content delivery network. The system can be used for live and on-demand broadcasts. ReflectStudio’s interface is similar to that of the PlaceWare presenter interface: A presenter can flip through slides or play pre-recorded media within the overall presentation. Users cannot do any video editing, however. It’s free, meaning it can be deployed to any desktop where a user needs to create a presentation.

ReflectManager runs on a Windows 2000 box with IIS, while the edge server only requires Windows 2003. Edge servers can be placed in remote offices as a means of limiting the amount of streaming traffic going through a WAN connection.

Playback is designed to work with just about any available desktop player and a standard Web browser.

On the hosting side, ReflectWeb is “an enhanced and updated version of what you saw with Yahoo Broadcast,” says Stan Woodward, chairman and CEO of Reflect Systems and a former VP at Yahoo. (Reflect Systems’ founder, Matt Schmitt also worked at Yahoo.) “It’s a service provider business where we can do all work for events. Whatever they needs, we can hold their hand the whole way.”

A ReflectNet installation starts around $50,000. Hosting is priced on a per-event basis.