Comparing Orb and Akimbo for VoD

Place-shifted video-on-demand provider Orb Networks (see e.g. my March 10 post) is among those innovations receiving IDG's '2005 World Class Awards'. Among the others are:

• email programs Gmail and Mozilla Thunderbird
• IM providers Trillian 3.1, QNext, VeriChat (PDAapps, for mobile) and SightSpeed (video)
• blogging tool TypePad
• search engines Google and A9.com (Amazon)
• desktop search from Google and Copernic
• Apple's Tiger OS, the Firefox browser (Mozilla)
• the OnlyMyEmail and SafetyBar (Cloudmark) spam filters and anti-spyware Counterspy (Sunbelt Software)
• VoIP providers Skype and Vonage
• the Wikipedia, the nytimes.com and archive.com web sites, the iTunes Music Store (Apple)

Competitor Akimbo Systems (see my November 8 post) is highlighted by David Pogue in the New York Times. "... a tantalizing idea". However, "the Akimbo library is so puny and overpriced that the enterprise is interesting only as a 'what not to do' case study". No prize for Akimbo, perhaps "High-Tech Turkey of the Year". "If Akimbo can fix the problems (...) maybe there's hope".

Orb seems to be the winner, so far, having chosen a new business model (my March 30 post) and steering for partners (April 26, May 4).