Stellent Bolsters Digital Asset Management Offering

Stellent

Stellent's release of the Audio Video Indexer, a $50,000 add-on module to the Stellent Content Management application, is aimed at general corporate uses, such as managing training videos rather than high-end digital asset management applications, said Dan Ryan, senior vice president of marketing and business development.

Ryan said most corporate users want to manage all their content in one repository rather than use specialized tools for graphical images and video assets. "We think we've solved the problem ... for the sweet spot of the market," he said.

While Stellent has been able to manage and publish rich media files to the Web with its current software, the Audio Video Indexer uses voice-recognition software to index and search content within a video file. The software also provides thumbnail representations of the content, the company said.

Digital asset management capability "is becoming a necessary requirement for an overall enterprise content management solution, but to be honest, its not a driving force," Ryan said.

In other developments Thursday, Microsoft made available software that integrates its Content Management Server with its SharePoint Portal Server, a move that gives Microsoft a fuller enterprise content management offering.

"You're really getting Web content management, portal management and document management in one seamless content management environment," said Chris Ramsey, product manager for content management for Microsoft.

Ramsey said Microsoft was also working on developing links between its Web content management software and other portal vendors.

The integration pack is available as free download for MSDN subscribers.

Also Thursday, divine said it was offering a software credit to customers that move off Vignette and Interwoven platforms to divine's ContentServer platform, formerly known as Open Market. The amount of credit will depend on the customer situation, but in most cases would be in the six-figure range, a spokesperson said.

Divine is offering the migration services through its own professional services arm as well as through a select group of partners that have expertise in both ContentServer and the competitive platforms, the company said. At this point, the company could only name one partner, Perficient, an e-business solution provider in Austin, Texas.

Eric Simone, senior managing director for Perficient, said he expects to get some business from the program because he is hearing from customers that they want to get off Vignette and Interwoven platforms because they are too expensive or too bulky for their needs. "It's tough for them to justify that ROI in moving off that platform, even if they want to," he added.

He said Perficient was very focused on IBM WebSphere implementations and decided to partner with divine on its ContentServer software because of its compliance with Java standards. He said lower-priced Java-based content management applications were gaining market share because they are easier to integrate and are not trying to offer too much. "It's a bit of a dilemma for the Vignettes and Interwovens of the world," he said.