Oversi, which provides peer-to-peer caching and content delivery for video, has raised $8-million in a private financing led by Cisco Systems. It's interesting to see P2P being embraced by "mainstream" telecom equipment suppliers given so many people equate P2P with free downloads. Oversi CEO Joav Avtalion said:

"We see Cisco's investment as an exciting milestone for our company, helping us to grow our business in line with the fast-evolving world of online video and P2P content distribution. With so much video and TV on the Internet, bandwidth is becoming the key issue. Using our P2P solutions, service providers can deliver up to 20 times more bandwidth using their existing infrastructures, instead of investing billions of dollars in expensive upgrades. We look forward to a fruitful and continued collaboration with our investment partners."

Technorati Tags: Cisco

So how keen are you about Microsoft Vista? Keen enough to be among the first people to embrace the new, much-anticipated and much-delayed operating system? During this week's Talking Tech podcast, Kevin Restivo and I both advise smart computers users to wait on Vista until Microsoft fixes any of the inevitable bugs that will emerge despite years of development and billions of dollars of R&D. After all, we're talking about an operating system with 40 million lines of code.

That said, when I think of Vista, I think of those old Fram oil filter commercial in which a mechanic tells a customer, "you can pay me now or you can pay me later". For computer users, it means you can migrate to Vista now (not recommended) or do it later but at some point, you'll probably have to do it to take advantage of new software and Web services designed specifically for Vista. While everyone is focused on Vista, people and investors shouldn't overlook the launch of Office 2007 given Office accounts for 30% of Microsoft's sales and 50% of profits.

Earlier this week, the Toronto Sun laid off 16 more employees - reflecting the newspaper industry's continued struggles. The question is if you owned a newspaper, what would you do to fix it? USAToday's Kevin Maney had an interesting column exploring the idea earlier this week, while I was inspired to write a blog post with my take.

Finally, Kevin (Restivo) and I looked at BitTorrent's $20-million venture capital deal. We're not sure how BitTorrent is going to spend $20-million given it doesn't have a P2P network to operate. Perhaps it's a sign investors believe the music and movie industries will start to capitalize on P2P rather than fight it like the music industry has insisted on doing. It could also suggests BitTorrent's investors believe consumers may be willing to pay for an online service that provide high-quality downloads at reasonable prices (much like iTunes). Then again, the problem with the P2P world is even if you have a legitimate player emerge, there will always be new ones offering free content...such as DailyMotion.com, which has a library of commercial-free TV shows.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Newspapers, P2P, Video

According to TechCrunch, BitTorrent has raised $25 million from Accel Partners and Doll Capital Management. BitTorrent has also signed distribution deals with a variety of major film and TV producers. So, the idea is the money and the licensing deals with MTV, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, etc. is going to make BitTorrent legit - and steer it farther away from its roots as a cool P2P technology used to download free movies, TV shows and music? In theory, that makes sense but it's a bit of a pipe-dream unless some of the $25-million is used to crack down on all those Torrent-crazed pirates out there. Mathew Ingram doesn't think much about the press release given he believes it's going to take a lot more than some PR for BitTorrent to compete against the pirates.

If you're a Slingbox user, the ability to watch TV wherever you are and whenever you want is a killer app - whether it's at the cottage, at work or in a hotel room while on a business trip. A Slingbox sweetspot is sports because it's a great way for the sports nut not to miss any of the action (a case in point will be all the daytime games during the upcoming World Cup). It's interesting - if not alarming for Sling Media - that Major League Baseball is far from thrilled with the Slingbox's ability to watch games away from home. According to CNet, MLB wants Slingbox users to pay an additional fee as a way to compensate cable and satellite providers who are cut out of the mix when a Slingbox users accesses their TV/PVR while away from home. MLB's complaint illustrates the focus on who controls content - the consumer or the content owner. Does the consumer have the right to consume content however, whenever and wherever they want if they purchase it? For example, if you buy cable service does it matter how or where you watch it? The same "control" issue continues to plague the music industry when it comes to questions about whether a MP3 can be copied on to multiple devices or how many times it can be burnt onto a CD. If you believe in a digital world where content wants to be free, does it make sense - or is it even possible - for content owners to attempt to control how it's consumed. It strikes me as completely reasonable that if consumers pay for content (a huge issue at a time when P2P shows no signs of abating any time soon), they should be able to use it any which way they want. It makes little sense to "penalize" people who actually spend money to buy content - be it cable service, music, movies, etc. Unfortunately, the content industry seems intent on maintaining control as they tout the merits of DRM and other consumer un-friendly tactics.

In a tight race, Liberal MP Sam Bulte lost her seat in the House of Parliament to Peggy Nash. You have to wonder how much of an impact the blogosphere had given the big election issue  in her riding - copyright reform and Bulte's tight relationship with the music, film, software and publishing leaders industry - emerged because of work done by bloggers such as Michael Geist. While  voters in other parts of the country focused on health care and the economy, people in Bulte's riding were suddenly questioning the copyright reform process. Of course, Bulte's might have also lost because voters simply wanted change but you can't discount the role bloggers played. One episode that perhaps demonstrated the blogosphere's influence was the focus on Bulte's decision to participate in a $250-a-plate fundraiser organized by music, software, film and publishing leaders. The optics of holding it four days before the election were terrible and it was exacerbated by how bloggers went to town on it. With Bulte now out of work, it will be interesting to see if she follows through on her threat to sue Geist.
For other views on Bulte's defeat, check out Geist, Boing Boing, Accordion Guy and Tech Dirt. The Toronto Star has comments from Bulte and Nash. (Hat tip to Rob Hyndman for doing the early-morning leg work on the links!)