by Gary Welz, Tangent Design
Street Technologies, Inc.
by Gary Welz, Tangent Design
Street Technologies, Inc. is a new provider of cross-platform streaming multimedia integration tools, courseware, hardware, and consulting services designed to bring multimedia learning to the desktop via LANs, Intranets, and the Internet.Their primary product is StreamMaker, a multimedia integration and deployment technology that developers, integrators, independent training providers, and software vendors can use to create interleaved, compressed stream files that can be delivered over networks.
Since many of the computers used on corporate intranets lacked soundcards, the company developed and manufactures an external sound card named Street Sound that plugs into a parallel port (like a printer port) and enables existing workstations to have sound capabilities easily and inexpensively.
Street's couseware includes a suite of off-the-shelf interactive training courseware created by content partners for leading standard office software, including the entire Microsoft Office and Lotus Office suites.
A typical StreamMaker training program is a streaming full screen movie of software being operated narrated by an instructor--quite like a software training video. All a user needs to view these programs is a plug-in for their Netscape or Microsoft web browser and a 28.8 kbps connection to the network. They presently support only the Windows 95 OS and the Pentium processor, but will support the Mac and the 486 soon.
Street Technologies also offers consulting services to assist organizations in evaluating their training needs and developing and deploying interactive multimedia programs. Their Conversion and Integration Group works with clients to convert new or existing content into a networkable, accessible and inviting multimedia format.
Street lets other companies franchise the content that they've formatted, so, for example, an ISP can offer training materials as an added benefit to its customers. Others companies can also create custom content with Street's tools, so a web publication or might offer multimedia in StreamMaker(TM) format to its readers.
The company was founded in 1995 by Stephen Gott, a former partner and Chief Technology and Operations officer at the New York investment banking firm of Lehman Brothers, Inc. and General Manager and Sr. VP at First Boston Corporation.
Gott describes Street as an "advanced learning systems" company and has applied his years of experience in corporate training to the problem of delivering lightening-fast, engaging, interactive, "Just-in-Time" multimedia and training communications over corporate networks and the Internet with no special hardware demands or constraints. "The ability to provide truly responsive interactivity is what sets Street apart from other training and learning vehicles."
Street's present clients include ISSC, the largest division of IBM which services more than 2 million desktops externally and has responsibility for the technology management of the entire IBM Corporation. They also work with the accounting firm of KPMG/Peat Marwick for company-wide deployment of standard and tailored training.
CBT Systems, the world's largest provider of corporate training programs, and Street Technologies have just signed an agreement to deploy CBT Systems interactive education software over corporate intranets and the Internet.
Are they interested in educational content for schools and entertainment? Gott says maybe in the future, but for the time being Street's focusing on business training needs--after all, corporations have the networks, need training that can be delivered to computers and can afford to pay for it.
