ClearStory Announces ActiveMedia CreativeConnections

PRESS RELEASE

WESTBOROUGH, Mass., Sept. 12 /PRNewswire/ – ClearStory Systems, Inc., an estab­lished provider of con­tem­po­rary dig­i­tal asset man­age­ment (DAM) solu­tions, today announced the launch of ActiveMedia CreativeConnections, a new mod­ule that extends the pow­er of the com­pa­ny’s ActiveMedia solu­tion. CreativeConnections allows design­ers and oth­er cre­ative pro­fes­sion­als who use Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress to inter­act with ActiveMedia with­out leav­ing their design appli­ca­tions, enhanc­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and improv­ing work­flow by pro­vid­ing a seam­less con­nec­tion between an orga­ni­za­tion’s cre­ative teams and enter­prise brand assets. CreativeConnections for Adobe InDesign CS2 is avail­able now, while the QuarkXPress ver­sion will be released lat­er in 2006.

It is both imprac­ti­cal and unpro­duc­tive for cre­ative teams to com­plete com­pli­cat­ed, time-consuming extra steps each time they mod­i­fy assets resid­ing in a dig­i­tal asset man­age­ment sys­tem. Graphic design­ers and oth­er cre­ative pro­fes­sion­als com­plain that doing so impedes their work­flow and can hin­der the cre­ative process. With CreativeConnections, cre­ative pro­fes­sion­als can search, view, down­load, insert and upload con­tent in ActiveMedia direct­ly from InDesign and QuarkXPress, two of the most wide­ly used page lay­out design appli­ca­tions. Layout files, pho­tos, graph­ics, and oth­er con­tent can be accessed from any­where on a net­work, based on an employ­ee’s per­mis­sions and privileges.

CreativeConnections extends the val­ue of ActiveMedia through SOAP Web ser­vices, deliv­er­ing impres­sive ben­e­fits that include:
* Improved pro­duc­tiv­i­ty – By cre­at­ing seam­less inte­gra­tion between an orga­ni­za­tion’s cre­ative lay­out appli­ca­tions and dig­i­tal asset man­age­ment sys­tem, CreativeConnections saves time, enhances pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and improves cre­ative work­flow. Employees have instant access to the con­tent they need – when they need it.

* Controlled review, approval, and ver­sion­ing – By unit­ing ActiveMedia and an orga­ni­za­tion’s cre­ative team, CreativeConnections posi­tions ActiveMedia as the cen­tral, shared cre­ative con­tent work­space, allow­ing for cross-team, cross-location acces­si­bil­i­ty, and facil­i­tat­ing con­trolled review and approval process­es and versioning.

* Brand con­sis­ten­cy and com­pli­ance – A Web-based solu­tion that pro­vides com­plete remote access, CreativeConnections ensures that cre­ative employ­ees are always access­ing the most cur­rent, approved cre­ative con­tent, help­ing to rein­force brand com­pli­ance. With CreativeConnections, the days of remote or free­lance cre­ative employ­ees acci­den­tal­ly work­ing with old­er, out of date con­tent are over.

* Lower total cost of own­er­ship – CreativeConnections allows cre­ative users to work with low-resolution images for posi­tion only (FPO) before swap­ping in high-resolution ver­sions for final upload. This helps over­come net­work and local stor­age con­straints, result­ing in an over­all low­er cost of ownership.

“CreativeConnections is anoth­er way that we are deliv­er­ing on our vision of pow­er­ing the end-to-end dig­i­tal media sup­ply chain with extend­ed appli­ca­tions from ActiveMedia,” said Henry F. Nelson, ClearStory Systems pres­i­dent and CEO. “We are com­mit­ted to devel­op­ing a range of appli­ca­tions that facil­i­tate enter­prise cre­ation, man­age­ment, and con­sump­tion of dig­i­tal media, the fastest grow­ing form of con­tent today.”

As the first of many SOAP Web ser­vice clients planned by ClearStory, CreativeConnections exem­pli­fies the ease with which appli­ca­tions can be built upon or inte­grat­ed with ActiveMedia.

About ClearStory Systems

ClearStory Systems is the leader in high-performance, con­tent man­age­ment solu­tions for dig­i­tal media com­mu­ni­ca­tions. ClearStory soft­ware man­ages the enter­prise dig­i­tal media sup­ply chain – from cre­ation and col­lab­o­ra­tion, to life­cy­cle man­age­ment and deliv­ery – to give com­pa­nies a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage, mar­ket­ing agili­ty, cost avoid­ance, and max­i­mum effi­cien­cy. Backed by pre­mier cus­tomer sup­port and ser­vice, ClearStory award-winning prod­ucts are easy to use and read­i­ly align with our cus­tomers’ busi­ness objec­tives for both a rapid return-on-investment and low total cost of own­er­ship. Visit us at http://​www​.clearsto​rysys​tems​.com.