In 2003, I was in Seattle getting ready to do a presentation on Flash
video at Digital Design World. Jim Heid, the conference organizer, saw
the title slide of the presentation and mentioned that I might be facing
a rather tough crowd. I looked out over audience members, sized them up,
and told Jim I had his back covered. He said he wasn't too sure about
that and pointed to the title on my screen: "QuickTime is dead." Looking
out into the darkened room, I watched about 200 people in the audience
open their PowerBooks; hundreds of bright white Apple logos stared back
at me. It was indeed going to be a tough crowd. Nobody really expected
the stranglehold that Apple, Microsoft, and Real had on the web
streaming market in 2003 to be broken. Y et by spring 2005, just 18
months after that present- tion, that is exactly what happened. Those
three web video delivery technologies practically v- ished and were
replaced almost entirely by Flash video. This is not to say QuickTime
and Windows Media are dead technologies. They aren't by a long shot, but
when it comes to putting video on the Web, the Flash Player has rapidly
become the only game in town. Before I get going, you have to understand
how Apple, Microsoft, and Real "lost" the market.
