Microsoft today raised the curtain on Microsoft Stream, a video streaming service that is geared towards businesses and enterprise customers. The company says it has already started showing business users the power of video through Office 365 video. Microsoft will integrate the new service into Office 365, making Stream the sole video experience.
James Phillips, corporate vice president for business intelligence products, introduced Microsoft Stream in a blog post. While Office 365 video will be coming solely from Stream in the future, at the moment the two services will work side-by-side.
“Today we are announcing the free preview of Microsoft Stream, a new business video service that democratizes access to and discovery of video at work. Starting today, anyone with a business email address can sign up for the preview in seconds and begin uploading, sharing and tagging videos in their organization.”
Business Video
Microsoft is hardly breaking new ground here. Other video channels oriented to business exist, not least YouTube. However, Redmond has arguably a good position to offer a platform specially designed for enterprise. The company has the most access to enterprise users through Office 365 and Azure, and has trust in the industry.
In its blog, Microsoft points out that the service is free and signing up takes “seconds”. The company adds that users can drag and drop videos to upload them can follow content from the homepage. Phillips discusses the ability to embed Microsoft Stream content into organization website.
The company also promises IT access to the service:
“We recognize the critical role IT plays in managing content and user access to internal content. We plan to enable IT to manage access and settings like granting and assigning channel and video access, remove and monitor content and manage what is viewable to specific groups in the organization.”
Developers will also be able to create third-party apps that use Steam and are available in the new AppSource store.
