Razuna Release Enterprise Edition
One of our featured open source DAM vendors, Razuna, have announced the release of an enterprise edition of their flagship DAM system of the same name:
“Following the successful launch of version 1.5 of the company’s digital asset management software, Razuna now announces the availability of Razuna Enterprise Edition. This edition features a number of high performance enterprise features, specifically designed for enterprise needs…Apart from minor changes to optimize the user experience, Razuna Enterprise Edition introduces these new features: Workflow, Rendering Farm and Akamai integration.” [Read More]
The rendering engine was actually announced in their last 1.5 update. Lines like this (from the CTO)
“Razuna is designed and built on an enterprise architecture with J2EE as the main engine,” says founder and CTO, Nitai Aventaggiato. “So handling large volumes of files and concurrent users has never been an issue. The workflow just adds that final enterprise feature that allows large corporations to fully enjoy all the benefits of our technology.” [Read More]
…suggest that there isn’t a great deal of difference between this one and the regular version, although being even-handed about it, the Akamai plugin looks new and I have extrapolated a lot from an arguably selective interpretation of the blog post alone (as most prospective end users will do too).
Some of the tech mega-vendors (especially the older and more entrenched ones) are keen on the ‘turn you upside down and see how much money falls out’ method of corporate software sales where you can put a cigarette paper between the ‘standard’ and ‘enterprise’ editions in terms of tangible features. In these scenarios, the vendor relies on the buyers believing they have to buy the most expensive option to ensure that all their requirements will be met. The buyer often pays for the costlier edition purely to try and give them some leverage over their account manager if things go wrong so they can expedite a fix or patch for them rather than needing to wait for it to be released to everyone else (or even acknowledged).
In the case of OS, it’s possibly more about needing to be seen to be charging something and having an ‘enterprise’ label – or people don’t believe that what you’re offering is any good or that they can get access to the aforementioned leverage even by paying for it. When purchasing software (of any kind) it really is essential to fixate on what you will actually get and how much of that you really need first and the cost second. There is a massive disparity between price and value in the IT market and some features of any application or item of equipment you may never fully use. Similarly, as observed in this article here on DAM news about open source, ‘enterprise’ is essentially a fictitious label that is wide open to interpretation. One should be careful about the terminology that is being used by all stakeholders – and how to interpret it.
I would also need to note that this does all add weight to the observation made by a number of people that some of the OS DAM players are changing their minds about the whole ‘costs no money’ element now a few dollars are being put their way to customise their products. Whether this starts to alter the dynamic of the open source DAM market remains to be seen – one or two leopards may yet change their spots.
Overall, this is probably a positive development for DAM users as they get more choice across both different technologies and licence models also. As some have commented, open source is just a licence and should not imply that you get a an above or below par application relative to a proprietary one.
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