Digital Asset Management Systems: Cost vs. Customization – The Pica9 Blog.
Digital asset management (DAM) systems come in all shapes and sizes. They range drastically in price and also in their customization capabilities. Usually, the more customizable the system, the heftier the price tag.
As we can see from this graph, the level of customization is directlycorrelatedto the price of the system, with a few outliers. However, in our experience, this relationship represents aninefficiencyin the current DAM system market.
A low cost, out-of-the-box system can be problematic because the creators of the system make broad stroke decisionsthat greatly effect the usability of the system. For example, the system predetermines types of users and their respective level of authorities in an out-of-the-box system. But is a predetermined organization chart realistic when no two companies are exactly the same?
On the other hand, we have noticed several problems with completely customized DAM systems, built from scratch, for specific customers. As you can imagine, creating a DAM system is a complicated process that requires a great deal of time and work to ensure it runs smoothly and bug free (hence the heavy price tag). So companies who purchase custom systems are paying to reinvent the basic platform, but the end result is a less stable system that takes a long time to develop.
Continues @http://blog.pica9.com/blog/?p=106