David Arbuckle is a 15-year veteran of the media and entertainment industry. He has launched IP video projects all over the world, and is well versed in bootstrapping engineering teams to design, build, and operate video services for the most demanding use cases out there. At MediaKind, he has run a portfolio of organizations including our TV Platforms, Global Operations, Innovation, and Cloud Engineering teams. Most recently, he led the effort to build and launch MediaKind’s SaaS offering — MK.IO. We’re here to talk with him about that today.

Why did you start building MK.IO?

I had wanted to build a video SaaS for years — it’s actually why I joined MediaKind. But the timing wasn’t right for the industry or our customers. When Microsoft announced that they were retiring Azure Media Services, it created an opportunity to take action. We had all the right technology in place already, so it was only a matter of linking it all together into an intuitive API and UX for customers to use in a self-service way. 

How has the industry changed, and what makes MK.IO a good fit for MediaKind’s customers?

The technology is mature, and everything is getting faster. The days when you could spend 18 months doing an RFP and a bake-off for a video product are over. What we’re seeing is that customers are focused on ease of integration and rapid deployment. What matters most is not choosing your preferred vendor for the next decade — it’s choosing the vendor that respects your autonomy and understands your business. We’ve seen this play out with MK.IO for Azure Media Services customers. Media transitions are difficult, especially under tight deadlines, so we made changes to our products to facilitate the transition of Azure Media Services onto MK.IO. I believe this has paid off for both MediaKind and the customers who have joined us.

What are you most excited about for the future?

Our team has made tremendous efforts to create MK.IO and to integrate it for migrating Azure Media Services customers. This has given us a platform to accelerate the development of the rest of our products for customers all over the world. We have a lot of great work in the pipeline, including AI workflows, event scheduling, venue and fleet management, and ad monetization. We’ll be at IBC in September of this year, showcasing many new capabilities. MediaKind is an evergreen company — we’ve been around in some form for nearly 30 years now! It’s incredible to see how this team has continuously and repeatedly invigorated this industry, and it definitely feels like we’re setting the stage for the next 30 years of video.

Register today and start building your workflow at www.mk.io.
Read our documentation at docs.mk.io