Feature Story

By Kat Rollin

June 10, 2008 — To gain a competitive edge in the growing digital economy, managers in media, entertainment and related areas need a solution to effectively manage the lifecycle of digital and video assets. The global nature of business also requires a solution that can be deployed cost-effectively in offices around the world. North Plains Systems and Sun can help you overcome these challenges with an enterprise-class digital asset management (DAM) solution that offers the flexibility of on-premise an/or on-demand options that can be cost-effectively deployed around the globe.

Complete Lifecycle DAM Solutions from North Plains Systems

North Plains is the world's leading provider of rich media and digital asset management solutions. Built on the TeleScope platform, North Plains' suite of products is designed to meet the diverse range of rich media needs — from small to mid-size businesses and design studios to the complex business challenges of global enterprises.

TeleScope delivers a unique advantage over competitive DAM solutions that simply archive assets because TeleScope manages the entire lifecycle of digital and video assets, from creation to workflow to archival to distribution. TeleScope capabilities include production workflow automation, online client project library support, long-form, short-form, and Web-based video content creation, intellectual rights management/enforcement, multichannel distribution, and tape-to-digital conversion and storage/archival.

TeleScope is available in four versions that all share the same code base. TeleScope Studio is designed for department level and small creative organizations. TeleScope Professional is a full-featured DAM solution intended for single office sites or departments. TeleScope Enterprise is North Plains' flagship product, designed to support the most demanding, complex, workflow-intensive environments over multiple lines of business extending across geographies and business centers, and TeleScope OnDemand is the hosted version, serving the needs of any sized company that needs a full-function DAM solution without having to manage the systems.

TeleScope OnDemand — Flexibility and Lower Costs

Since 1994, TeleScope has been available as an on-premise solution for many of the world's largest corporations. Many of these companies, including leading advertising agencies and printers, offer their TeleScope platform to their customers as a hosted solution. Responding to this trend, North Plains launched TeleScope OnDemand, a hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) solution to provide a convenient and cost-effective alternative for organizations that require enterprise-class functionality without the cost of deploying and managing on-premise systems.

North Plains chose to host TeleScope OnDemand at NaviSite, one of Sun's SaaS hosting partners. "We have had such a great experience with the scalability and peformance of the Sun platform at Warner Brothers, the largest digital asset management system in the world, supporting over 42,000 users worldwide, that we chose Sun as our preferred platform for delivering our SaaS solution." says Hassan Kotob, President and CEO of North Plains Systems. "With Navisite and Sun as partners, we are confident TeleScope OnDemand is the best solution on the market."

TeleScope OnDemand offers any-where, any-time access to DAM functionality, and it's the first hosted solution that can also integrate into on-premise applications for workflow management. So you can create content on native Windows or Mac clients where ever you are and then manage the assets through TeleScope OnDemand.

TeleScope OnDemand is ideal for companies that need to expand globally, but do not have the budget to build a globally installed solution.Users can access TeleScope OnDemand any time, any where. TeleScope OnDemand typically takes about two weeks to implement, so you can quickly support new offices or functionality. In addition, North Plains provides the option to migrate to an on-premise solution while maintaining the exact same look, feel, and functionality.

Sun and North Plains

TeleScope OnDemand hosted at Navisite and running on the Sun platform offers scalability on a global basis, without deploying worldwide. Now you can manage assets locally, but use them globally with rapid implementation, low costs, and no requirement for IT resources. TeleScope OnDemand is a cost-effective alternative for small and midsize businesses, Fortune 1000 marketing departments, global brand leaders, and creative agencies.

Formerly a systems engineer for Sun, Kat Rollin now reports on partner solutions for sun.com and develops technical marketing communications for the technology industry.