North Plains Acquires Xinet - Brings Together Best-in-Class Solutions to Manage Rich Media Throughout the Entire Lifecycle
TeleScope User Group (TUG) Conference - Beverly Hills, CA – April 12, 2012 – At the Telescope User Group (TUG) Conference, North Plains, the leading provider of digital asset management (DAM), today announced that it has acquired Xinet. This acquisition combines two best-of-breed DAM companies to address the broader rich media management needs of creative workgroups, marketing departments and enterprises. In the process, it expands North Plains’ position as the largest pure-play DAM vendor in the industry. Now, the thousands of combined North Plains and Xinet customers can leverage the entire lifecycle of a rich media file, from its creation and work-in-process (WIP) to its global distribution and archiving as a valued asset.
As the volume of digital media created each year continues to increase, including video, audio, images, graphics, Flash banners, social media applications and 3D renderings, the need to manage these rich files throughout the full lifecycle from creation through distribution becomes a critical business process, one that reduces the cost of recreating, monetizing or inappropriately using digital files.
Both companies have been pioneers and innovators, singularly focused on addressing the challenges in rich media workflows. Through this acquisition, North Plains leverages Xinet’s best-in-class technology for file-based management of WIP assets as well as its success serving departments and creative work groups, and its global partner network. The acquisition extends North Plains’ already-established leading role in the DAM market providing industry-best database-centric asset management, particularly for enterprise organizations, publishers, media and entertainment and other Fortune 1000 companies that need to globally distribute their digital media to multiple agencies, partners, retail outlets and consumers.
“By acquiring Xinet, we are able to optimize the synergy between the two companies’ solutions and fully leverage the strong channel partner network and team of Xinet,” said James Christopher, President and Chief Executive Officer of North Plains. “This acquisition aligns with North Plains’ company strategy to deliver best-in-class products and services that reduce the time and costs associated with the creation, management, distribution, and archiving of rich media assets, and allow our customers to derive deep value from investments in these critical business processes.”
“We have grown Xinet based on the strength of our software and our ability to address the needs of creative talent within organizations,” said Scott Seebass, Chief Executive Officer of Xinet. “Like Xinet, North Plains’ deep focus on digital asset management and their equal passion for delivering innovative products and services allows us to jointly provide our customers unparalleled products, services and solutions for rich media.”
“Accel-KKR is excited to support North Plains in its acquisition of Xinet" said Rob Palumbo, Managing Director of Accel-KKR. "We believe that by combining two innovative and industry leading rich media management providers, who serve clients that span from small creative groups to the global marketing teams in some of the worlds largest companies, we strategically position North Plains for continued and sustained growth”
According to Mukul Krishna, Global Director, Digital Media at Frost & Sullivan, “The need to manage an organization's digital assets is arguably the most critical part of any workflow in today's business environment. It is imperative to have persistent management of digital assets through their lifecycle spanning creation to distribution. Such a complete solution that meets the need at the workgroup level and at the enterprise level, has been very challenging to provide by any single vendor. This acquisition provides a combined set of products and services that more completely address much more of the rich media lifecycle, and sets-up North Plains as the largest pure-play DAM vendor based on revenue.”
The Xinet® WebNative® Suite enhances collaboration and accelerates rich media workflows between staff, vendors or clients in industries like advertising, publishing, prepress, retail and corporate communications.
TeleScope™ is North Plains’ modular, award-winning digital asset management platform. It enables the secure access, management and distribution of all digital and rich media content in virtually any file format, across any size organization in any industry.
For more details regarding the acquisition, as well as North Plains and Xinet’s products and services, please go to www.northplains.com and www.xinet.com.
North Plains will also demo both solutions at the upcoming Henry Stewart DAM event in New York on May 10-11, 2012.
About North Plains, LLC
North Plains is the world leader in managing the digital assets and publishing processes that create the vast majority of digital and print communications. By providing software and services that enable companies to shift from content management to digital supply chains and multi-channel publishing processes, North Plains helps companies manage their brand, expand their rich media communications across multiple channels, and deliver higher quality content faster, at lower cost. For more information visit www.northplains.com.
About Xinet
Xinet is a leading developer of high-performance server software applications for graphics and media professionals. With North American headquarters in Berkeley, California and a European office in Munich, Xinet has built a loyal customer base of the top advertising agencies, retailers, printers, publishers, and corporations worldwide. The Xinet digital asset management software solution is a flexible and efficient asset management system that provides access to volumes throughout the enterprise and around the globe. For more information, please visit www.xinet.com.
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We have assembled a series of questions and answers to update and inform our customers about the Xinet acquisition
What does the acquisition mean to my existing relationship with Xinet?
North Plains strongly values Xinet’s customers and the relationships the company has formed— it’s one of the many reasons why North Plains was attracted to the company. The acquisition of Xinet does not affect your operating relationship with the Company.
Will the product I currently use change? Does North Plains plan to integrate TeleScope and the Xinet’s WebNative product suite?
North Plains does not anticipate to significantly change Xinet’s products other than to provide ongoing product upgrades as previously done to meet customer demand. North Plains does envision a more seamless product integration between WebNative and Telescope to help customers better manage digital assets through the entire asset lifecycle. North Plains will communicate all stages of integration during the process.
How does the acquisition benefit Xinet and North Plains customers?
Today’s global, multi-channel marketing, publishing and communication processes require enterprise asset management and collaboration solutions, yet creative teams need solutions tailored to their unique creative workflows. North Plains and Xinet together provide a solution that offers complete flexibility to creative teams while providing the essential collaboration, reuse, security and distribution of an enterprise digital asset management solution.
North Plains made the acquisition because it believes in the market, the company, and the opportunity to offer an expanded offering to our customers. North Plains recognizes that the DAM market is evolving and that its customers are facing the need to manage assets from creation through to distribution. Based on customer feedback, North Plains knows that there is a strong desire for best-in-class products from Xinet and North Plains to come together to answer this need. With this acquisition, North Plains is able to combine the very best technology the industry offers and provide its customers with a solution for managing global assets throughout the entire lifecycle.
Why is North Plains making this investment?
Xinet offers best-in-class file-based asset management of work-in-progress (WIP) assets. It has had tremendous success serving departmental needs and work groups. North Plains offers best-in-class database-centric asset management, particularly for enterprise assets that require access, use and distribution across the company and its extended partners. It has great success across the enterprise of large global brands, publishers and media & entertainment companies. This acquisition expands North Plains’ already-established role in the DAM market and enables us to offer solutions for managing rich media through the full asset lifecycle.
- Companies:
- Xinet Inc.