Recently a buyer of our Digital & Media Asset Management Report contacted me with a few questions about vendors they're considering for a major Enterprise DAM implementation. One of the vendors in the running is Artesia, part of Open Text.

In our research, we spoke to more than a dozen major Artesia customers as part of our product evaluation process, and most were unhappy with Artesia's customer service and support. This is perhaps not surprising, since the majority of Artesia's revenue is from software licenses, and members of Artesia's executive team have said on panels that they are not a services company.

When our customer confronted Artesia about the low customer service ratings in our report, Artesia claimed that our analysis was based on one isolated customer experience, and that our report was a "paid report." Our customer wrote to me asking what that meant.

I couldn't help but laugh, and be appalled at the same time. When I first called DAM vendors to gather information for The Digital & Media Asset Management Report, more than half asked how much they had to pay to be in the report. The answer? Nothing. A few didn't believe me, because they're used to a more traditional analyst model where vendors often have to pay to be included in a report, or worse yet, in order to receive positive spin.

Now, Artesia is using payola in a different way -- trying to claim their review would be better if they paid us somehow? Please, keep the money and put it into a customer service program. We talked to many customers, and several ex-Artesia employees, and in turn reported the facts. And that's what we'll continue to do.