Guest Blog Post from Sean Banahan, Widen Sales Executive

We talk a lot about hosted vs. installed software and it’s becoming more obvious why organizations choose DAM SaaS, but here’s a couple more things to look for:

– Support. Many license digital asset management software providers tie support into an annual fee. If you fall behind or get out of compliance with the license they hold you hostage until it’s righted. Other hosted DAM providers have had trouble even getting back to customers. It’s often because there are no real dedicated support channels at all. Customers call into a developer who rarely picks up the phone and gets back to them when it suits the developer. I am not aware of a single DAM company that provides user support through a chat as Widen does. Most only provide product support to administrative users rather than end user support of any kind.

– Product Improvement. With three releases a year, most other DAM providers can’t keep up. I think customers are used to seeing a very stagnant approach to improving things in their DAM vendors. Bug fixes are released a few times a year but real enhancements show up once a year and usually contain far less than was promised.

– Cost. Why wouldn’t you consider that Widen’s DAM solutions are more cost-effective than almost every other SaaS/on-demand provider in the enterprise space? With licensed solutions there is no comparison.

– Experience. Widen is a DAM provider and not an agency/printer that has developed a piece-meal solution for one client last year and then tried to productize it for everyone. Our shared platform includes 12 years of experience and a feature list that shows it.

– Ease-of-use. The solution tends to be easier to use than other DAM solutions people have seen. Period.

– Features. Embed links, support for storing, displaying and transforming multiple files types, robust access rights that are not exclusively tied to folders.

– Vision. Again, prospects are used to seeing their DAM supplier develop things after the market begs for it. With Widen we talk about publishing to Youtube and present marketing materials there, we have three major releases each year, we want people to access the demo site, we are much more forward on cost and what’s what.