Get Your Own DAM Solution: Manage Digital Assets with Extensis Portfolio Server 11
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When they hear the name Extensis, most creatives probably think of fonts, since the company is well known for premier font management solutions like Suitcase Fusion.
And indeed, with the number of fonts squirrelled away on our hard drives, almost all of us could use some degree of font management.
But creatives do not live on type alone (with apologies to Jim Felici, Ilene Strizver, and Nigel French—love you folks). We also have a glut of assets to somehow manage: photos, illustrations, animations, video, audio, and layout files.
So it’s only natural that Extensis also offers a system to manage all your creative assets. It’s called Portfolio Server, and if you really want to be fancy about it, you can call it a Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution. Technically, Extensis offers not one but three DAM choices since Portfolio Server comes in Enterprise, Professional, and Studio level editions.
With a DAM like Portfolio Server 11, you can keep your files organized, control who has access to them, determine how they can be used, and even convert them to other formats. You can use it to process files you don’t have the software to work with on your computer. You can even enable the sale and licensing of your assets.
Portfolio Server 11 Desktop Client for Mac
Portfolio Server 11 Web Client
Portfolio Server 11 Express Palette for Mac
A well-running DAM can save an organization of any size a lot of time, money, and effort over attempting to manually manage assets. Extensis estimates that the average user of Portfolio Server saves 2.5 hour of work per week. I’d sure like to have and extra 2.5 hours per week (I’ve totally fallen behind in my meme tracking. Do people still do the Harlem Shake? And did we ever figure out why the cat was so grumpy?)
In sum, a good DAM simply maximizes the return on the investment you make to create digital assets. Each asset becomes more of, well, an asset, and less of a chore to deal with.
If you think you might need a DAM, you probably do. And if that’s the case, then check out the full description and list of Portfolio Server 11 features.
And if you want to hear from some satisfied customers, check out the recording that’s been posted of Brenda Thomas, Brand Services Manager of Princess Cruises (yes, the company known for the Love Boat), speaking about how Portfolio Server helped her company reduce their brand services costs by 20%. The recording also contains advice on workflow best practices for brand services departments, creative agencies, and corporate marketing departments.
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