Microsoft have announced Interactive Media Manager, a next-generation digital content management solution that combines digital workflows and media application integration with a collaborative front-end environment.

The solution provides tools for building complex workflows, monitoring the performance of those workflows and facilitating the reviews and approvals in the workflow process by pushing tasks and forms directly to the recipient’s Microsoft Office Outlook inbox or to an RSS feed.

Building on the capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007, Interactive Media Manager provides the following customizable Web parts that target specific processes within the content production life cycle:

• Media Library serves as a front end in which media content items in the digital asset management system are displayed as thumbnails.
• Media Viewer displays information such as annotations and time codes in Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers format and offers sophisticated, built-in playback controls.
• Media Annotator allows groups of people to collaborate on media assets through video annotations, digital inking and discussions.
• Media Import facilitates the upload of media files and automatically launches associated workflows, such as information-gathering processes.
• Media Cart provides an individualized area for storing media assets that people want to edit themselves or push out to appropriate editors.

Interactive Media Manager (new solution package for MOSS) includes components of existing Microsoft solutions such as Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, InfoPath XML forms and the newly announced Microsoft Silverlight.

• Press Release: Microsoft Introduces Interactive Media Manager to Simplify Digital Content Life Cycle by Connecting People, Processes and Rich Content
• Demo of Interactive Media Manager on On10