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BY Craig Lindell | June 12, 2002
Source: internet.com.au |
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As digital media assets proliferate, companies are exploring the best way to
manage and gain value from their intellectual property. Once the domain of
media companies and broadcasters, the affordability of digital-creation tools
such as cameras and editing software has encouraged a number of executives to
explore mixed media to train staff, communicate with partners or extend their
brand worldwide. Enterprises are increasingly inundated with a wide variety of
assets in digital form, ranging from documents, publications and images to
video, multimedia and 3D models. "Few truly understand the value of digital
assets," GartnerIG2 Research Director, Denise Garcia details in a recent
report, "let alone how to harness them, leverage them or integrate them into
the company's day-to-day business." Digital Media Asset Management (DAM): The
Next Business Transformation notes, "digital media assets are proliferating,
and most organisations have the networks and technology to exploit them."
However, Garcia cautions, "networks and technology are not enough. It will take
an internal structural change to fully exploit media assets' inherent value."
Spanning the DAM market is provider, The Rumble Group. Rumble Group was founded
in 1997 "to supply digital content infrastructure to customers across the
banking, manufacturing, media, resources, telco and utilities sectors." The
Group has built end-to-end enterprise solutions that provide managed storage,
optimised access and secure delivery of digital assets, complete with rights
protection. "The evolution of IP networks, the Internet and the convergence of
digital media will catapult DAM across enterprises in virtually every
industry," the company believes. "Rumble has a suite of digital asset
management applications which operate in conjunction with their RNI (RichMedia
Network Infrastructure) platform," Ian Morden, vice president corporate
development, explains. "The applications are built to operate on distributed
networks recognising the growing need to access digital assets remotely and to
scale gracefully with large volumes of digital assets and associated metadata."
Rumble's platform distinguishes between metadata and the digital asset. Based
on a web interface, users can search and browse content over the Internet or
within an intranet. Running on top of an Oracle database, the scalable Rumble
RNI technology platform utilises latest technologies (XML, Java, SOAP) to
create a highly modular architecture, customisable for specific business
domains. Rumble recently entered into a strategic alliance with Silicon
Graphics (SGI) to "collaboratively develop and commercialise software
applications with leverage existing SGI proprietary software applications into
new markets and distribution channels."
The company's DAM applications are capable of running on a range of operating
systems including all Windows environments and IRIX (a version of UNIX). Some
leverage the IRIX based StudioCentral, Morden explains, "robust thrid
generation DAM software which we currently licence in from SGI in the USA. We
believe we are making StudioCentral, which has to date been focused on the
high-end broadcast market, more accessible and exposing it to a larger
potential market." Rumble highlights a number of drivers for DAM market growth.
These include the proliferation of digital rich media assets among corporations
creating an imperative to efficiently store, manage and access vast numbers of
assets, and to deliver them amongst both workgroups and the web. Additionally,
advancements in bandwidth and file compression technology have increased the
ability to move terabytes of data over networks in a less cumbersome manner and
creating opportunities to save costs.
The GartnerIG2 report predicts that organisations focused on creating content
or doing substantial advertising will develop in-house media departments by
2003. Marketing departments and product development teams will be the early
adopters of digital media assets and outsourcing will follow the e-business
outsourcing curve as digital media integrates within the organisation. A key
question raised in the report is decision to outsource DAM or keep the process
in-house. "Currently, sales, marketing and human resources most often use
digital media assets, for training and presentations. Each department may
create digital media asset plans for its own needs, independent of the
organisation. Yet, because digital media is so flexible and can be used from
one group to another, no single department emerges as the logical one to lead
the task of integrating digital media assets into the whole of the
organisation."
GartnerG2 has observed that creative services departments increasingly are
being asked to manage digital material and even to proactively suggest new
applications for digital media assets. In interviews conducted with companies
that have created a media department, the analyst found that unless the
decision to create a media department is made at the strategic level, the
organisation looks to this department simply to complete projects rather than
to transform workflow. " Companies like Cisco and Citigroup have established
media departments primarily to increase internal and external efficiencies.
Both companies, finding a plethora of intellectual capital and information at
their fingertips, have leveraged their digital media assets across the
organisation by creating a centralised department, much like the e-business
departments that were established three to four years ago." Morden agrees,
adding "the positive thing about this for Rumble is that these internal media
departments will all be looking for simpler and more efficient ways of managing
and distributing digital media internally."
Rumble offer companies the choice of having their DAM applications in-house, he
adds, or using the software on an externally hosted 'MSP' basis. "This is
attractive as companies can start small using the MSP and then move the
application in-house as their requirements scale. Also, some companies have
sensitive content which they prefer to keep in-house." Kendrick says the
question of in-house or outsource depends on industry segment. Within the media
department of corporates, he believes "that the trend is to outsource due to
large investment costs in IT infrastructure. When your talking large image
files, video or audio files (or other digital media formats) then you need some
horsepower to be able to manage, secure, do business and deliver this
information. In the longer term though (and we are seeing evidence of it now)
is that organisations will begin to reel it back in-house for greater control
and knowledge retainment." He does agree organisations are keen to develop
in-house media departments. "Certainly for content creators it allows them
greater flexibility to re-purpose their content whether it's leveraging
existing content for other jobs or just plain commercialising their assets to
target groups," such as consumers and publications. |
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