Xinet, Telescope and On Brand Updates Focus on Interoperability and Accessibility   

Toronto, Canada – North Plains, the leader in helping companies leverage their visual media assets, today announces updates for core elements of its software product portfolio – XinetTM 17.5, TelescopeTM 9.1 and On BrandTM 2.6.  The updates are designed to provide even greater accessibility to rich media assets for reuse and repurposing and also facilitate smooth interoperability across different phases of the digital asset lifecycle. Collectively, these improvements will help North Plains customers continue to derive maximum value from their rich media assets.

“Our product portfolio offers best-in-class products for creative lifecycle management, providing solutions focused on delivering rapid time-to-value and architected to scale to meet the needs of enterprises,” says Kevin Tureski, Vice President of Product Development at North Plains.  “Our worldwide team of talented engineers and product designers has streamlined critical workflows in each product according to specific use cases, with a common focus on improved accessibility and interoperability.”

The announcements underscore not only North Plains’ deep investments in software engineering, but also the goal to deliver regular updates to its software portfolio in response to constantly evolving customer requirements and technology advancements. 

The product updates focus on interoperability as well as improving usability and efficiency of the systems, making it easier for organizations to take advantage of the full value that North Plains’ portfolio of products provides. 

Xinet 17.5 

Xinet is an optimized media production environment, tuned to deliver immediate productivity benefits to creative teams producing rich media assets in an environment tightly integrated with the Adobe Creative Suite. New features and enhancements to Xinet include: 

•Xinet Pilot – Production efficiency is enhanced by expanding previous Asset Browser functionality onto the creative desktop, facilitating an in-context experience that enables greater flexibility to access, automate and synchronize asset production.

•Interoperability – North Plains’ ConnectRTM technology now allows Xinet to “push” assets and related metadata with a single click to both On Brand and Xinet Digital, North Plains’ new brand engagement products.  Additionally, assets and metadata that have been "pushed" to Telescope can now be "pulled" back — all from within the Xinet interface.  

•Unicode support – Xinet now encodes multiple languages and character sets, allowing deeper localized deployment across multiple geographies.

•Audio “thumbnails” – Audio files can now be previewed in Xinet via MP3 audio “thumbnails” that are easily accessible while browsing.

•Dongle-free licensing on all supported platforms – In response to customer demand, Xinet can now be licensed without a hardware dongle on Windows and Linux.

Telescope 9.1 

Telescope is an enterprise-scale digital asset management (DAM) system, which provides a highly scalable solution for companies needing a central repository of rich media. The new release focuses on:

•Interoperability – ConnectR technology has been enhanced to allow Xinet users to pull content from a Telescope repository.  As a result Telescope and Xinet can now be connected in a bi-directional workflow for asset transfers.  Creatives working on a Xinet system can easily repurpose and reuse content that has been promoted to a central DAM system with the click of a button. 

•Usability – The Telescope web interface now includes auto-complete functionality in many data entry fields to speed form completion. As you type, Telescope automatically filters out non-matching items from the list until you select the desired value.

•Streamlined repository interaction – Files can now be dropped directly onto Telescope to trigger import, and catalogs of selected assets can be dropped directly to the desktop or into a creative application such as InDesign. 

On Brand 2.6

On Brand is a hosted solution that offers an easy-to-use interface for management of brand assets and brand guidelines, plus optional capabilities for marketing resource management. On Brand 2.6 is enhanced to provide:

•Refined user permissions – Permission support in On Brand now extends down to the asset level, enabling precise control over what digital assets and materials can be viewed, downloaded and shared.  This provides greater protection and distribution options for brand managers.

•Localized portal experience – On Brand can now be used to brand portals in multiple languages and themes, improving accessibility across multiple geographies. 

Availability

Xinet 17.5, Telescope 9.1 and On Brand 2.6 are slated to be shipped by the end of the quarter. For more information about North Plains’ product portfolio, visit http://northplains.com/how-we-do-it/digital-asset-management-products. 

Henry Stewart DAM New York

North Plains will be at Henry Stewart DAM New York, May 2-3, 2013 in booths 7 and 8 to discuss the new updates as well as to give demonstrations of the entire product portfolio.  North Plains will also be presenting at the following sessions:

•May 2nd at 11:10 a.m. EDT – “Five Reasons Why your DAM Needs to Change” featuring Tim Padilla, Director Customer Success at North Plains.

•May 3rd at 2:30 p.m. EDT – “Meeting the Developing Needs of DAM Users - Predicting the Future Always Difficult but Always Fun” panel featuring James Christopher, President and CEO of North Plains.