Extensis Inc. on Thursday introduced the latest major release of its Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution for Mac OS X and Windows — Portfolio 7. The new release will be published in April and May 2004, according to Extensis.
Portfolio 7 is used to organize digital content like photos, illustrations, page layouts and presentation files, using visual catalogs that can then be viewed over a network by workgroups or even published to the Web.
The new release of Portfolio adds many new features that are targeted specifically towards simplifying the management of digital photography, such as built-in CD burning, batch image conversion and embedding support for EXIF and IPTC metadata such as captions and copyright info directly into image files. Also new are enhanced view options and screen previews, contact sheet printing and more.
NetPublish is another major new feature of Portfolio 7; this add-on module automates the conversion of Portfolio catalogs into Web sites. It relies on a wizard-style interface and incorporates templates which users can then use to build full-featured sites including built-in image search, collection baskets, low-res previews and batch downloading. Extensis recommends running NetPublish on a Microsoft Internet Information Server, but notes that it also supports Apache 1.3 or 2.0 running on Mac OS X as well.
Extensis expects to release the Windows version of Portfolio 7 first — it’s coming in April, which the Mac version will follow in May. Portfolio 7 will cost US$199.95 with a NetPublish license that allows sites to be shared with a single computer; additional NetPublish licenses cost $199.95 for five concurrent Web connections or $999.95 for unlimited connections. Upgrades are available for $99.95-$129.95 for Portfolio 4, 5 and 6.
System requirements for Portfolio 7 call for a G3 or faster with Mac OS X v10.2 or higher and QuickTime 6.4 or higher.
Also coming during the second quarter of 2004 is a new Portfolio 7-compatible server, according to Extensis. The new server will provide the capability for larger workgroups to use the asset management system.