The management of rich media is so important that IBM and Arthur Andersen both have built global practices to develop processes and structures to deliver it. But what tools are being used to build processes and frameworks? Who are these digital librarians?
Divide the practice into two groups: the integrators (Arthur Andersen, Concero, IBM and Razorfish) and the vendors (Artesia, Ascential, Bulldog Group, Chuckwalla, eMotion, IBM and New Mexico Software). Both are codependent, although some, like IBM, are both vendor and integrator. Product vendors are listed on page 50.
These software products need integrators because of the lack of standards and integration with other workflow management products like content management and DRM. The wheels are churning, though—Artesia and Vignette already have struck a deal. And Virage (video logging) already has been integrated with multiple DAM vendors.
However, there are other players. Most of the enterprise vendors have big solutions that need an integrator to tailor them to the needs of customers. But what about a client that doesnt need an enterprise solution or one with highly specialized needs?
Visionary, a DAM vendor, has an asset-management product designed specifically for litigation. Visionary, with the integration Virage, can parse a deposition video, flag it, and index it using speech recognition. Then it has its own presentation software made for the courtroom—just an example of a specialized DAM solution.
As we noted, DAM can be integrated with other applications. One vendor, Impresse, has a Marketing Resource Management (MRM) solution that takes a DAM solutions rules and metadata and applies it to its marketing and advertising software. Impresses MRM manages an entire marketing campaign from design to ROI.
New Mexico Software has a hosted solution and can scale from a single user to the enterprise level. Considering that most of the DAM solutions we looked at start at $150,000, the $10,000 workgroup solution is an excellent entry point into the market for integrators and allows access to the technology to a huge section of the market.