DAM Lowdown: Fire Sale on Kodak Patents, DAM Best Practices, More DAM Events

By Jason Campbell (@jemorycampbell) Jul 27, 2011

The DAM Lowdown returns with the following news and notes from the world of digital asset management: DAM Events, Survey Results for 2010 of DAM Best Practices, Revenues Rising for Media Storage Systems, DAM Resources from Widen, Kodak Looks to Sell 1000 Digital Imaging Patents, and Quick Hits.

DAM Events

Chicago is the current hot spot for DAM conferences. Having just wrapped up a seminar from the team at Createasphere, the Windy City now welcomes The Henry Stewart Group and DAM Chicago 2011 on September 13.

Another upcoming event requires only a computer and an internet connection. DAM Lowdown regular Canto (news, site) hosts a webinar on Wednesday, 7/27 titled: Getting Started with DAM. Starting at 11 am (PDT), the free webinar is intended to help people as the begin researching DAM platforms for implementation.

Survey Results for 2010 of DAM Best Practices

From SEW Consulting Group comes the results of a 2010 survey of DAM best practices. The executive summary (link) surfaced three key takeaways:

Many existing DAM platforms are aging, and not aging well. Whether these platforms were once off-the-shelf products or are home-grown, they are now so heavily customized that they have become unmaintainable. Organizations now look to technologies like BPM to prevent a repeat experience.
Dedicated, standalone DAM systems are being replaced with more integrated systems. This points directly at a premise often put forth here in the Lowdown that DAM is quickly converging with other technologies such as web content management systems.
People are slowly learning that "systems are not solutions". Companies must look at their processes first, get those right, and then implement systems that best support said processes. Bending your processes around your software causes more problems that it solves.

Revenues Rising for Media Storage Systems

According to the 2011 Digital Storage for Media and Entertainment Report, the future for media/entertainment storage systems is bright:

Between 2011 and 2016, we should see a 770% increase in necessary digital storage capacity and as much as 560% growth storage capacity shipments per year.
Revenues will increase approximately 170% from 2011 to 2016: from US$3.8 B to US$6.4 B.
By 2016, tape units will decline to 39.1% while hard drives will increase to 60%.
By 2015, digital archiving and content conversion will consume 61 Exabytes of digital storage.
ATA hard drive arrays are becoming the most popular solution for readily retrievable fixed storage.

DAM Resources from Widen

Despite the fact that they are in here every week, I promise that Widen (news, site) isn't a sponsor (at least not yet). The fact is that Widen publishes a lot of content intended to help people work in the digital asset management space. We have three more to offer this week:

I am the last to the party with this one, but if you need or want to learn about DAM a great place to start is DigitalAssetManagement.com.
If whitepapers are more your style, the latest offering from Widen is: DAM - What to Know Before You Go.
Project Collaboration Demo

Kodak Looks to Sell 1000 Digital Imaging Patents

When your stock price is down 56% for the year, you need to find ways to generate cash. One way is to sell your intellectual property. Kodak (news, site) holds more than 1,100 digital imaging patents focused on capturing, processing, storing, organizing, editing and sharing digital images.