Brandworkz 5.1 Released

One of our featured DAM vendors, Brandworkz, have released version 5.1 of their flagship DAM system.  The new features include:

• Structured Tagging (Hierarchical Metadata)
• Video Transcoding
• Multi-lingual capability (with French as standard)

“Brandworkz 5.1 builds on upon the developments we made in 5.0, giving marketers better even tools to manage their brands” says Lundgaard. “Video transcoding solves a common problem, where client teams have large video files that they can’t distribute or they are forced to use in a format that is not appropriate. Hierarchical metadata empowers digital assets with more information, making our search functionality even more powerful. And our multi-language capability opens up new markets for Brandworkz.” [Read More]

The owners of Brandworkz are GlobusMedia who have some history in the Digital Asset Management market, having had a DAM/MRM system (named Brandworkz) available for over 10 years (perhaps longer, I first became aware of them in 2002).  It seems that many other vendors are taking a similar approach now and either spinning off their products into separate businesses or consolidating everything a single brand (as in this case).

This trend suggests confidence among vendors resulting from a maturing market and many deals being closed.  Typically in the tech sector, what often follows is complacency and a built-in expectation that the current boom period will last forever combined with some over-exuberant spending on marketing and some less than sensible product innovations.  We had a bit of that last year with some vendors splashing out on iPad-specific interfaces, even though most of their end users weren’t that interested and tablet technologies are in a bigger state of flux than DAM, but there appears to be more grounded and realistic assessment of end user needs at present.

One would hope that this trend lasts and also that the management of a number of vendors are old enough to remember the dot com boom/bust.  The large number of competitors (and ease with which new ones can join the market) as well as general poor economic conditions in the larger western markets might also further help to temper any tendency towards ill-conceived excess resulting from getting a few new clients on board.  The question is, however, how long can this complex combination of market factors maintain itself to hold the sector in a sustained period of growth?

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