Cloudy and spicy Wasabi Technologies has snapped up Curio AI from GrayMeta.
The deal includes the Curio AI software and the brains behind it, including GrayMeta’s boss, Aaron Edell, who will join Wasabi as the big cheese of AI and ML.
Wasabi will use the Curio AI tech to create a new type of smart storage for the media and entertainment industry, which it plans to launch in spring 2024.
Curio AI will make a detailed index of every second of video stored in Wasabi.
Wasabi’s top dog, David Friend, said that a video archive without proper metadata is like a library without a card catalogue.
From February, Wasabi will offer a “smart storage with AI” package for a higher price than its standard storage.
“Our AI-powered storage will cost more but still be much cheaper than Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Keeping it simple is the key to channel success since they have to deal with many products,” Friend said.
He thinks an integrated solution where you upload video and metadata, which is done automatically, making it easy to show off, test, and sell, is a better plan.
“Billing is accessible based on storage usage. We try to give good channel margins on Wasabi.
“The channel loves our reserved capacity pricing model, where you buy storage upfront on one, three, or five-year contracts – it’s like selling hardware. Salespeople get the full commission right away.
“We have a billing API where MSPs can buy Wasabi in bulk at a discount, then resell storage to sub-accounts – we give them the usage details for invoicing. The channel loves that extra cash flow.”
Friend adds that Wasabi plans to offer partners certifications at different levels and will let them label this product.
A friend of mine came up with the idea of buying Curio while visiting Major League Baseball, the organisation that runs all the baseball teams in the US.
“They have a massive archive of old LTO tapes going back 30 years, with recordings of every game played in the US. I suggested they should value this content and be able to reuse it. They said the problem is that even if they move all that data to the cloud, they still need help finding something because the metadata is scribbled on the tape boxes – just the teams, date, etc.
This made him realise how vital metadata is for video.
“Video takes up more space than letters and numbers, so metadata is crucial.
“The Boston Red Sox, a Wasabi customer, were trying out Curio for video tagging.
“I saw Curio could provide the metadata and bought their tech and team. At IBC Amsterdam, we showed off the integrated Wasabi storage and Curio metadata solution – upload the video to Wasabi, and Curio automatically indexes it.”
Friend reckons there are 400 exabytes of video archive out there, very little of which has been moved to the cloud because of the metadata problem.
“It’s a huge opportunity for the channel to help sports teams, TV networks, video production houses, broadcasters, etc., take their tape archives to the cloud.
“Cost is lower now, and metadata makes it usable. They can finally enjoy instant search instead of rummaging through boxes.”
