Control Rich Media Assets Stored in SharePoint

By Barb Mosher | Published Feb 26, 2009

They don't have SharePoint in the name of their new solution, but it is a solution for SharePoint nevertheless. Autonomy has announced a solution designed to provide SharePoint users the ability to get the most value out of the rich media assets stored within its repository. Called ControlPoint for Multimedia, the solution analyzes and retrieves the rich media stored within SharePoint without complete reliance on manually created metadata associated with the asset.

Autonomy knows that SharePoint is used widely in enterprises today, but not necessarily managed well. What that means is that eDiscovery is nothing short of challenging. And Autonomy is big on eDiscovery. So they created ControlPoint for Multimedia.

Actually, the solution seems to have been first developed by Merido, the record management company that Autonomy acquired in 2007. The full Merido-based solution is known as Autonomy ControlPoint | Visibility & Governance for SharePoint and is an information governance solution for SharePoint 2007 implementations.

ControlPoint for Multimedia

Powered by Autonomy's IDOL technology, ControlPoint for Multimedia provides conceptual analysis of rich media stored within SharePoint to provide users with the relevant content they need (be it textual or non-textual) that is related to that rich media.

"Rich media has become a critical information resource for the enterprise," said Mike Lynch, CEO of Autonomy. "With Autonomy's ControlPoint for Multimedia, organizations can rein-in control of MOSS' rich media content and comply with eDiscovery regulations using automated, advanced analytics while at the same time avoiding the costly and protracted labor of adding metatags. By enabling full multimedia search and analysis for unified messaging, information management and eDiscovery, Autonomy enables organizations to transform the Microsoft system into a multimedia content management system."

Supporting All Types of Rich Media

This solution supports just about any kind of rich media including those used in broadcast, video conferencing, VOIP, CCTV, and customer service interactions. In addition, the solution is able to work with live or recorded speech enabling functionality such as search, editing, processing and linking as text.

Also included in ControlPoint for Multimedia are a number of visualization tools that enable users to easily categorize the rich media accordingly.

This sounds a lot like a Digital Asset Management solution, without the DAM term. Integration features with MOSS include:

Encoding and Indexing Rich Media
Automated creation of Metadata
Storage, archiving and managing of rich media assets
Audio, video, email and IM chats are indexed, search and cross-referenced with other formats
Clustering to help identify duplicates or potential duplicates
Phonetic and conceptual search
Workflow for rich media management
Analytical tools
Support for multiple languages

Conceptual Search and eDiscovery

It was only a week or so ago that Autonomy released their Conceptual Search solution. The Search Process Validation Module (SPV) is also powered by Autonomy's core infrastructure software product, the Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL). This module offers a fully audited search methodology to ensure a forensically sound search strategy.

Although they don't say it directly, it would appear that this module may be a part of this SharePoint solution.

This looks like the continued efforts of Autonomy to move into the enterprise with strong eDiscovery solutions. And if you don't think SharePoint needs eDiscovery features, then you haven't been listening to the industry.

With the proliferation of rich media, it would not be surprising that many organizations have forgone the Digital Asset Management solution thinking SharePoint will work just fine. ControlPoint for Multimedia may be the solution that makes that assumption a reality.