Canto has announced plans to support Intel-based Macs with Cumulus 7, the next version of its Digital Asset Management (DAM) software for Mac OS X. It will run natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based systems.
Cumulus can handle all types of digital assets — the company has developed software systems for workgroup publishing, business group collaboration, archiving, sales and marketing and more. It runs on multiple operating systems including Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and Solaris.
Cumulus 7 isn’t expected to ship until Summer, 2006, and Canto is keeping a lid on a complete list of new features until closer to the product launch. But the company said that Cumulus 7 has been rebuilt using Apple’s Cocoa development environment, leveraging Java 1.4/1.5 interfaces. That has netted improved performance over the current release of Cumulus, which uses older Java technology, according to the developer.
Also coming with the version 7 release is a new Web Services interface, which Canto said will make it easier to integrate Cumulus within portals and business systems. Extended trigger functionality will allow Cumulus 7 administrators to build chains of automated actions that are activated after any change to the system’s data. Cumulus 7 will also gain improved security feature for assets and the metadata they are tagged with.
Canto noted that customers who buy Cumulus between now and version 7’s release are entitled to a free upgrade.