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ADAM Software debuts SharePoint connector for DAM

tregli@cmswatch.com(Theresa Regli) — Mon, 1 Sep 2008 14:48:00 -0400

There's a number of reasons SharePoint doesn't cut it for enterprise Digital Asset Management: file size limits, and crude facilities for transcoding and metadata management, to name a few (we mention several more in our evaluation of MOSS as a DAM tool in The Digital & Media Asset Management Report). Much like search vendors Coveo and Mondosoft spent several years building a business on compensating for weaknesses in Redmond's old search services, pure-play DAM vendors are now attempting to compensate for the flaws in MOSS as a DAM.

Belgian vendor ADAM Software, which boasts Microsoft as a customer, recently debuted a SharePoint connector, and has put together a rather informative movie showing what the user experience of using SharePoint as a front end for ADAM is like. Along with Interwoven's Media Bin, ADAM is one of the few .NET-based DAM platforms on the market, so it's a bit of an arranged marriage between SharePoint and ADAM, perhaps.

If you're already using SharePoint as a simple image library, but need to kick up your capabilities towards real enterprise DAM, ADAM's connector could well be worth testing in your own environment. Note, however, that though the connector stretches SharePoint's DAM capabilities, it only does to a point. Depending on your requirements, you still may need to accept working outside of SharePoint for more advanced DAM functions such as management of video and other time-based assets.

Bam, WAM, thank you, DAM!

tregli@cmswatch.com(Theresa Regli) — Wed, 9 Jul 2008 15:36:00 -0400

Late last month I had the pleasure of attending the Henry Stewart Digital Asset Management Symposium in London, UK, where I presented a summary of our research recently published in The Digital & Media Asset Management Report 2008. It was interesting to contrast this event with Henry Stewart's other recent DAM event, in New York City, held in early May. While many of the challenges faced by digital asset managers on both sides of the Atlantic are similar, few vendors find success on both continents. Though most of the vendors in our report claim customers "worldwide," a true presence (meaning more than a sales person) beyond the headquarters is usually lacking -- oftentimes, the software is simply pushed by resellers abroad, with minimal success.

Unlike last year, Canadian vendors North Plains and Nstein had their footprint on the London show floor, while Artesia ( who was there last year) was notably missing. Otherwise, ADAM, Vyre and other smaller UK and Europe-based vendors continued to fulfill the need of their local markets, and look to expand. As I noted along with my colleague Alan at Internet World UK back in April, there's no shortage of small to medium-sized WCM vendors doing well in the UK market, either, and many have yet to venture even into continental Europe. For every vendor that's acquired an gobbled up, two or three new ones seem to emerge, fulfilling ever more specific micro-niches. Perhaps the "Go Local" trend isn't just about food anymore, but technology suppliers as well.

But talk in the conference rooms was more about the business challenges of broadcasters, designers, marketers, and publishers than it was about the tools and vendors themselves. What echoed most frequently at both conferences was the idea of DAM not just as an asset repository, but a set of workflows leading to an end product (be it a brochure, catalog, or 60-minute broadcast). Each step along the workflow should add value, be it metadata enrichment or some artistic or editorial improvement. And yet, as we've pointed out before, most tools fall short of allowing licensees to truly automate and expedite the often complex publishing processes required by typical DAM scenarios.

It's in this spirit that Chris Glynne, who recently started his own consultancy called Bold Visions, pitched the concept of WAM, or Workflow Asset Management. While the last thing we all need is another acronym, if we're going to take DAM beyond the concept of a digital library, focusing on workflow, and the automation of steps along the typical DAM path is one key way of making that happen.

Digital asset managers asked me a lot of questions about non-pure-play DAM vendors' DAM capabilities. From Alfresco to Microsoft to Oracle, conference delegates wanted to know if they really needed a pure-play DAM tool if they already had SharePoint or Oracle's UCM. That question is not easily answered without delving deeper and understanding your needs and business scenarios. Do you have digital assets that are larger than 5 MB? Do your assets require you to manage both individual and composite assets, such as an product image, and then a brochure where the image might be used, and subsequently a 250-page product catalog where it might be applied as well? Do you need to manage and use the same asset at various resolutions, for both the Web and print? Then SharePoint sure as heck won't do the trick, and you'd be stretching other non-DAM-specific tools. Specialized DAM vendors raison d'être is to fulfill needs like these.

I'll share more leanings from these two DAM events as the summer continues; feel free to email me with any DAM or MAM questions you may have as well, as we continue our research into this fast-changing technology.

Don't DAM the little guys

tregli@cmswatch.com(Theresa Regli) — Wed, 4 Jul 2007 09:07:00 -0400

At last week's Henry Stewart DAM Symposium in London, a lively crowd joined my talk on vendor-neutral approaches to selecting content technologies. The themes and challenges in the DAM ("digital asset management") space aren't much different from those in the larger ECM arena:

How can we manage content better across organizational silos?
How can we better relate different content assets to each other?
How can we use content to create better customer experiences?

This then raises an obvious question: are big, broad ECM vendors the logical supplier of asset management technology as well? I have my doubts.

Let's start with the broader consumer context. The huge increase in video and music files on the public web is highlighting challenges faced by enterprises trying take better advantage of those same content types. Sure, iTunes is popular, but it suffers from its own shortcomings. First, audio quality (one audiophile friend of mine likens iTunes music quality to a low-resolution image that shows just how much detail it's lacking when you enlarge it and look closely). Second, sucky metadata, making playlists labor-intensive rather than automatic.

DAM vendors are attempting to provide tools that respond to such challenges. Pieter Casneuf of Belgian DAM vendor ADAM nicely highlighted the importance of creating relationships among product information, images, and related media.

Given all the creative ferment in both public and enterprise markets for media management, there remains ample room for point solutions that can innovate, as evidenced by the growth of smaller DAM players. Buyers should be aware that the DAM component of an ECM suite is often an island in a larger sea of disconnected products, so the prudent customer will also consider smaller, independent DAM vendors in their evaluation process.

Should your enterprise give a DAM?

tregli@cmswatch.com(Theresa Regli) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 09:44:00 -0400

On June 28 & 29th, join me in London for the Henry Stewart Symposium on Digital Asset Management, Workflow Automation, and Marketing Efficiency & Effectiveness. I'll be speaking about scenario-based product selection. There will be a lot of interesting sessions tailor-made for marketers, from DAM case studies to executive roundtables. If you'll be there, drop me an email and we can meet for tea or a pint, or perhaps an evening match down at Wimbledon?