There's a quiet move to hosted broadcast applications, billed cyclicly, to move things that are a high capital expense into the montly expense budget. Automation, traffic, studio systems like consoles, processors, and all the stuff Orban is lining up are moving to either on-line services or hosted containerized applications in an "Docker" appliance PC.
So...two categories: web-hosted apps that take all the hardware out of your studio, and run the apps on redundant off-site systems, and Docker appliances that accept and host a small offering (for now) of virtual devices locally. There is economy in both methods, but they are not the same, and both do not fit the same user.
The web-hosted apps now include Automation, traffic, studio systems like consoles, processors, stream encoders, PPM encoders, and more. You pay as you go, and own nothing but the very basics at the studio...if that. And what you pay for is current applications, premium hardware to run it, redundancy, and backup with zero server and workstation maintenance. Well, almost zero. The fly in the ointment is you gots ta have reliable internet. Really. Reliable. If you're geting the Net on old fence wire, web-hosted apps aren't going to work.
The Docker Appliance solution is more localized, though not necessarily at the studio or transmitter only. Its simply a host device that can run containerized apps, like the above list, but the appliance sits in a rack (somewhere), not on the web. Because the one big gating item that prevents Joe-Bob Engineer from whipping up a reliable Docker on his own is that the softare structure between docker and container is fairly unfriendly to common users, and documentation isn't exactly "For Dummies" yet. Typically that kind of situation gets mitigated by a nice UI, and standarized interfaces protocols between docker and container. And I think we're close to that. But since it doesn't exist yet, that's what Orban and Broadcast Bionics are building: the Docker appliance, with standardized "slots" and a UI to plug in some very specific containerized apps. They just made it easy. Right now the Docker is a very significant item, but I don't think it will stay that way for very long. Too many advantages. Fast and easy backup/restore to name one, better use of hardware for another.
Yes, the Dockers, like the Orban device, are pricy for smaller markets, but they do replace or eliminate the need to purchase quite a bit of stuff. But yeah, it's pointed at the big boys right now, or someone building up from zero. Again, that will change, I think. But I wouldn't think the time is right for jumping it with both feet in a smaller market with already functioning systems. As we watch this stuff, we'll see some very fast, very stiff competition, and who want's to be married to an expensive first-off infrastructure that's still developing?
And don't forget, the big buzz word is AI. For better, or for worse. It can be applied to a whole lot of functions in broadcast, many we haven't though of, and hosted or containerized apps will be offering AI features. Some already have.
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