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Alan Pelz-Sharpe

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DAM moves - Tata acquires BT Mosaic

18-Jan-2010

Tags: Digital and Media Asset Management, Document Management (ECM), Marketplace at Large, Publishing-Media

Today the Indian IT services giant Tata announced that it was to acquire BT Mosaic.  It's an acquisition worth examining in a little more detail, since we will likely see more of the same over the coming years.

BT Mosaic boasts extensive rich media services, in that their (SaaS-based) offering stretches beyond Digital Asset Management to production facilities, and most importantly digital distribution.  BT Mosaic's customers are able to make use of BT's (British Telecom's) network expertise to link and push content throughout global broadcast networks.

BT Mosaic was an interesting spin off from BT, one that had done fairly well commercially while building up it's network reach and services. Most likely Tata will continue to support BT Mosaic's focus on media companies, but I would expect Tata to absorb elements of the Mosaic services  and start to offer this into broader enterprise IT offerings.

There will always be a market for standalone DAM software, meeting the needs of marketing departments for example. Rich digital media is making up an increasing percentage of enterprise content, and it's only going to grow.  Not only is it easier to create digital media these days, but the demand and expectation is growing exponentially.  Digital media is becoming pervasive and needs to be managed alongside and in lock step with all our enterprise content, not as an exotic exception.

The next couple of years for DAM will be fascinating to watch, as one way or another Digital Media is going to continue to grow in importance far beyond its traditional uses and constituents, and become a key element of any Enterprise Information strategy.