Documentum Integrates Rich Media Tools With Content Management Software

Documentum Bulldog Group

The content management vendor, which acquired Bulldog in December for $11.5 million, is hoping to get a jump on the market for software that will help corporations manage video, audio and graphics files and deploy them to Web sites.

"Every single Web site you interact with has some form of rich media," said Whitney Pidmarsh, vice president of product marketing for Documentum, Pleasanton. "You have to do more than just store, secure and retrieve it."

Documentum's Media Services module will also enable users of its 4i Enterprise Content Management software to do more than treat rich media as text files, she said. Users will be able to view streaming media, generate and view thumbnail files and convert graphics into different file formats, she said.

"The ability to publish and manage those rich media assets is a key advantage because you don't have to do it manually or in two separate systems," Pidmarsh said.

One of the advantages for users is the lower cost of purchasing and maintaining one integrated solution, she added. Implementing the Media Services module on top of the company's 4i Enterprise Content Management Platform will cost from $50,000 to $100,000, she said.

Bulldog's software is used by movie studios and other media companies that needed high-end capabilities for digitally managing video assets. While that market is relatively mature and slow-growing, some analysts believe a much broader market for software that handles digital assets is developing.

"The Documentum announcement is an indication that we are at a strategic inflection point, and once again we are going to find a whole range of applications that we never knew were there before," said Geoffrey Bock, an analyst with the Patricia Seybold Group, following the acquisition.

One area that Documentum intends to target with a bundled solution and marketing campaign is brand asset management, a market that some applications integrators say is rife ground for content management solutions. Brand asset management solutions are targeted at marketing departments, which need to manage a variety of digital assets such as logos, photos and video as well as collateral sales material.

"We're doing a number of projects in that space," said Frank Modrisum, global leader of digital content services for Accenture, a Documentum partner. He said companies spend on average 3 percent to 5 percent of gross revenue on creating, managing, sourcing and distributing content and that there is a big opportunity for taking cost out of the process.

Along with the release of its Media Services module, Documentum also released a new version of Bulldog's software, rebranded as the Documentum Digital Asset Management Edition 3.0, which handles broadcast-quality video and is targeted at media, broadcasting and government markets.

The new version includes advanced features for digitizing and searching through tape libraries and out-of-the box integration with the Virage VideoLogger, a tool for searching and retrieving video content.

Pidmarsh said the Digital Asset Management Edition will be integrated with Documentum's content and document management software within about six months, giving users the ability to management documents with their digital assets.

While Bulldog mainly sold its software direct in the past, Documentum will be opening up opportunities for its partners to sell the digital asset management software as well. "We've already started channel training programs for exactly that purpose," she said.