Accordent Extends Enterprise Video Leadership With New Distributed Capture and Portal Publishing Solutions

Accordent Media Management System (AMMS) V4.0 Provides Deep Integration with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Lync Technologies to Enable Distributed Rich Media Capture and Universal Access

El Segundo, CA(01 Nov 2010)

Accordent Technologies today unveiled new capabilities in the fourth generation of its Enterprise Video Management platform  that enable organizations to capture and archive rich media content at the desktop via the Microsoft Lync Unified Communications platform, upload and approve Lync recordings and other User Generated Content to the AMMS system, and publish the entire library of AMMS content seamlessly to Microsoft SharePoint 2010.  

AMMS V4.0 represents collaboration between Accordent and Microsoft and an extension of the decade-long partnership between the two companies, spanning the breadth of the Microsoft media platform, including Windows Media, Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft SQL Server, IIS, Microsoft Silverlight and now the SharePoint 2010 and Lync technologies.  

The Accordent Media Management System (AMMS) V4.0 enables organizations to work with their Microsoft infrastructure investments to deliver highly bandwidth-efficient, live and on-demand video for virtually any business scenario - whether it is informal, Lync-based sessions and presentations originating at the desktop, virtual meeting room sessions archived for future playback, or CEO webcasts to global audiences numbering in the tens of thousands.  Rather than requiring users distributed throughout the organization to learn new technologies and tools to create and view rich media content, the AMMS integrations for Lync and SharePoint 2010 bring video creation and viewing capabilities directly to one of  the most widely adopted communications and portal applications in use today.

The Accordent Enterprise Video Management platform , which includes AMMS V4.0 as well as Accordent enterprise video capture products, removes the complexity of enterprise video by providing a single, streamlined application layer that automates best practices across all phases of the video communications lifecycle:  from enterprise video capture to portal services to video content management to rich media delivery across disparate network environments.

"The Accordent suite of applications can add value for customers by bringing together core elements of the Microsoft platform to build an enterprise video content management solution for both business and IT users," said BJ Haberkorn, Lync senior product manager at Microsoft Corp.  "Our industry partners, like Accordent, can provide the customization and scale that customers are looking for as they initiate and grow their enterprise video initiatives."

"Over the next three years, video will become a commonplace content type and interaction model for most users," said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow for Gartner Research. "Integration with internal portal and web content management, company websites and public portals for external constituents is needed." Cearley recommends that CIOs "build a strategy to exploit video in 2011-2015, including selection of appropriate tools to manage video creation, deployment and use."*  

Groundbreaking new features in the Accordent Enterprise Video Management <http://www.accordent.com/campaigns/evm/>  platform include:
   
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Integration

End users can access an organization's SharePoint 2010 site and use the embedded AMMS V4.0 capabilities for integrated search, video content browsing and program viewing within the SharePoint 2010 user interface.  Administrators can use Accordent's unique, media player-side viewer tracking capabilities to measure, track and report on media viewing within the SharePoint 2010 environment.

Highlights of the integration include:
· Single Sign-on - End users can sign on, and will be authenticated, via the same login ID as their SharePoint 2010 and other Microsoft system accounts;
· Integrated Search - End users can use SharePoint 2010 search to find AMMS video assets and have that content presented alongside all other relevant content types, including documents, emails, web pages and images.  End users will see details of the Accordent video content, event metadata, chapters, and slides, and will be able to preview content within the search area, regardless of the video's file/format;
· Embedded SharePoint 2010 Player - When end users choose to play a video, a minimized version of the player - which may include video and synchronized graphics - is displayed within the SharePoint 2010 interface. The play back experience is within the SharePoint 2010 UI and does not require pop-up/out windows. Viewership reporting is tracked whether the user is viewing the content within the embedded SharePoint player or the expanded player mode is launched;
· Content Browsing Web Parts - End users can browse video-based content via SharePoint Web Parts, including the following browse views: Library Tree, Upcoming Events, Recently Viewed and Most Popular. Video content can be viewed within the Web Part frame and/or launched to expanded player mode;
· SharePoint 2010 Administration - An AMMS Administration console is provided within SharePoint 2010 that allows IT administrators to align the AMMS instance configuration with the SharePoint 2010 environment.

Microsoft Lync Integration
The Accordent and Microsoft Lync integration will enable users located anywhere in the organization to capture Lync sessions, create individual presentations, and submit other media content to AMMS. There, the content can be approved, transcoded, and published to SharePoint and/or other content repositories, and distributed over the network in a secure and scalable fashion.

· Microsoft Lync Session Recording & Publishing - End users can record and publish any Lync conversation to AMMS. Users can also enter additional metadata, such as participant names, meeting subject and keywords, which can be viewed by the content approver and used for content search and indexing;
· Single-User Microsoft Lync Presentation Capture - The Accordent Lync Manager desktop application enables any user to utilize the Lync technology to author and publish a rich media presentation to the AMMS system and SharePoint 2010 portal;
· Media Upload from Microsoft Lync Interface - Users can leverage a built-in media upload function within the Accordent Lync Manager desktop application to upload other media content from desktop-accessible directories, add metadata, and publish content directly to the AMMS system, where content can be reviewed, approved and transcoded.

User-Generated Content
Accordent has extended its user-generated content capabilities by providing a simplified user interface and workflow for content submissions, coupled with a review and approval framework required by the enterprise.

· User Content Submission - Accordent has added a "Content Submission"  portlet  to its AMMS portal, which enables users to upload videos, documents, images and links as well as add descriptive metadata such as speaker, date, keywords, chapters and content retention date ranges;
· Content Transcoding - AMMS automatically transcodes media - which may be submitted in virtually any file format, frame size or data rate - into target formats to facilitate subsequent content approvals and uniform playback;
· UGC Upload Workflow & Approval - Once end user content has been uploaded and transcoded, it is placed in a reviewer's queue where the reviewer can approve or reject content, adjust submitted metadata, and notify the submitter of the content's status;
· User Submission Tracking - AMMS will provide reporting that allows content submitters to view and monitor the progress of submitted content including uploaded content lists and queues, links to submitted content, approval status and feedback monitoring, and deletion of previously submitted content
· Content Ratings - AMMS Administrators can enable viewer content rating at the portal level, which will include rankings, aggregated results and search by rating levels.

"AMMS V4.0 realizes our vision for extending enterprise video creation, submission and viewing capabilities to users across the enterprise," said Mike Lorenz, Accordent Chief Technology Officer.  "Our goal has always been to leverage and embrace widely adopted infrastructure technologies; AMMS V4.0 continues this tradition by integrating deeply with SharePoint 2010 and Lync to bring enterprise video solutions directly to users and the tools they use on a daily basis."

*Gartner Symposium Presentation, Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2011, David Cearley, Carl Claunch, October 2010.

About Accordent Technologies, Inc.
Accordent provides the industry's only automated, end-to-end infrastructure for creating, managing, delivering and measuring the effectiveness of video-based content.  The Accordent Media Management System is the first scalable video content management platform that enables content ingestion from any source, management of content regardless of format, metadata management and search of streaming content, and detailed viewership reporting across the enterprise. Accordent-manufactured rich media creation products include Accordent PresenterPRO, the Accordent Capture Station and Accordent Engage.  Accordent is an award-winning company with world-renowned clients spanning a range of vertical industries. http://www.accordent.com