Starlight Networks

Starlight Networks was founded in 1991 by Charlie Bass, Jim Long^[1][2] and Mark Gang with backing from investors Accel Partners and Interwest Partners. The company created some of the first commercial video-on-demand and video streaming products.^[3][4] The first Starlight Networks product was named StarWorks^[5] and enabled on-demand MPEG1 full motion videos to be randomly accessed on corporate IP networks. Later a version was released for Novell named Starware.^[6]

Originally the press referred to networked video as "store & forward video" but that changed after Starlight Networks began describing it as "streaming video".^[7] In late 1996 as Starlight added support for live presentations integrating live streaming video with slides and chat, they referred to such solutions as "InterMedia Networking".^[8]

In 1995 Starlight introduced streaming video over satellites with Hughes Network Systems.^[9] In February 1998 Starlight introduced one of the first full motion video Web conferencing products, StarLive! (the exclamation point was part of the product name).^[10] Technology analyst Om Malik wrote in May 1998 how Starlight software helped power Bloomberg Television and Starlight partnered with RealNetworks to enable Web conferencing at Smith Barney.^[11] General Electric also tapped Starlight Products for corporate communications and training.^[12]

Other investors included Sequoia Capital, and Merrill, Pickard, Anderson, and Eyre Ventures. Starlight was acquired by PictureTel Corp. in 1998.^{[13][14] [15] [16]}

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