• Brightcove Alliance Launches

    Brightcove is unveiling "Brightcove Alliance" today, a wide-ranging ecosystem of technology, distribution and solution partners who have integrated with and/or are building applications on the the company's platform. Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove's CEO briefed me last week.

    As he explained it, Brightcove 3, the recently released, latest generation of the company's platform, represented a new push on openness and extensibility which are the key requirements for building out an ecosystem. Alliance partner benefits include platform APIs, training, support and improved access to Brightcove's long list of content provider customers through pre-built integrations.

    The company is announcing more than 80 partners today, covering just about every aspect of the broadband world. The press release includes supporting quotes from a dozen partners and customers and Jeremy added that many others expressed interest and will be included subsequently.

    The only other large and formalized industry ecosystem I'm aware of is thePlatform's Framework program, which was announced last February and added to in September. It now totals over 60 companies and includes some overlapping names with Brightcove.

    Having been involved in several alliance programs in the past, my take has always been that the litmus test for their success is whether they generate real revenue for partners. Too often what you get is the initial "Barney" press releases (i.e. "I love you, you love me") but little more in the way of actual new business.

    Brightcove has two advantages to help it avoid a similar trap: (1) a lengthy list of existing customers who will likely welcome pre-integrated partner products and services that can be easily and inexpensively accessed and (2) a large group of partners, who, given the lousy economy, will be aggressive in pursuing Brightcove to identify customer opportunities. Brightcove should capitalize on both to expand its market position.

    What do you think? Post a comment now.