LONDON, U.K.-- Despite intense needs among broadcasters, advertising agencies and other brand-focused enterprises to manage graphics, video, and audio through complex, enterprise-wide business processes, most Digital Asset Management (DAM) technology fails to meet customer requirements for workflow and rights management, according to research recently released by CMS Watch, a vendor-independent analyst firm that evaluates content technologies. These findings are released in conjunction with The Henry Stewart Digital Asset Management Symposium in London, June 25th & 26th, where CMS Watch Principal and lead analyst for digital asset management, Theresa Regli, is speaking.

"Marketers and broadcasters in particular have complex needs to automate the processes around the creation and distribution of graphical and time-based assets," explains Regli, co-author of The Digital & Media Asset Management Report 2008. "But the notion of workflow in most DAM systems is just a thread of e-mails," Regli adds, "which can work for small workgroups, but not enterprise-wide deployments."

Added Alan Pelz-Sharpe, lead analyst for Enterprise Content Management and author of The ECM Suites Report 2008, "This isn't only the case with DAM, but even with some ECM suites that boast workflow and business process automation as a core competency." Adds Pelz-Sharpe, "DAM may need to take its cue from other systems by more actively embracing services-oriented architectures, which allow for better integration with major BPM tools."

DAM customers also reported challenges with tools' inability to manage digital rights at the level of granularity required in modern broadcast and publishing scenarios. Adds Theresa Regli, "Despite some rudimentary DRM capabilities among DAM vendors, many customers need to manage rights at the level of a segment of video or even just part of an image, whereas typically a DAM tool can only specify rights on an entire asset."

The Digital & Media Asset Management Report 2008, available at /Reports/DAM/, provides detailed, comparative evaluations of 18 major digital asset management vendors, including:

• ADAM Software
• ClearStory Systems
• EMC
• Interwoven / MediaBin
• Open Text / Artesia
• North Plains
• IBM / Ancept Media
• WAVE Corporation
• Canto
• Widen