are investing in its enormous opportunity. The potential to sell consumer hardware, software, and services by enabling every PC, PDA, and phone for video communication is now driving the market forward at an accelerated pace. On-demand video, music, software and interactive video communication is causing the displacement of dial-up Internet connections with high-speed always-on services, and the enormous disruptive power of the Internet has undermined brick and mortar companies that physically distribute goods such as videos, music, and software. It is in response to growing competition from NetFlix™ that Blockbuster Video TM keeps changing its pricing model and introduced its own on-line service. With the firm entrenchment of the Internet, and the growth of broadband and PDAs, carriers must provide robust networks that support applications and offer unfettered and abundant access to services. Through the balance of this chapter, we will consider some technologies and the conditions that will transform video and interactive multimedia communications from being a viable tool today into being an essential tool tomorrow. We will begin with a look at the changes going on in the area of computer operating systems. Video Communications: The Whole Picture THE OPERATING SYSTEM The Web has become the business platform-of-choice and Web-based architectures continue to make operating systems less significant. The growing popularity of Java, Linux, and even Symbian os and Palm os is evidence that the tides have changed and os decisions are now much more likely to be considered on their merits-including features, reliability, supportability, security, and scalability-not market share. Carriers as a whole have shown little more than frigid indifference to Microsoft's influence and have been among the first and loudest to decry Windows OS' well- documented lack of stability, flexibility, and security. Carriers are increasingly meeting their needs with Open Source solutions_ free and customizable OS's with flexible solutions for