Mediasite Webcasting Platform Used to Document Design Sessions for the European Space Agency

AMSTERDAM, Jan. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- (ISE booth #3A120) — Sonic Foundry, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO), the trusted market leader for enterprise webcasting and lecture capture, today announced that its Mediasite webcasting platform has been chosen by the Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) to enhance the quality and consistency of knowledge design sessions for the European Space Agency (ESA).

The Concurrent Design Facility (CDF) is a state-of-the-art facility equipped with a network of computers, multimedia devices and software tools, which allows a team of experts from several disciplines to apply the concurrent engineering method to the design of future space missions.

Established in 1998, the CDF is an essential component of ESA's in-house mission assessment process, completing more than 150 space mission studies and hosting numerous presentations and workshops to national space agencies, industry and academia. After several attempts to develop an in-house solution for recording presentations, the CDF selected Mediasite for its automated webcasting platform and robust content management system.

"Our decision-making is by consensus and involves all perspectives. It requires cooperation and interactivity between various technical domains," said John Gunner, concurrent infrastructure and communication technician for CDF. "Recording the rich media 'conversation' between these domains improves participants' understanding of the overall system design. Mediasite, a rich media knowledge management system further enhances the quality and consistency of the CDF's output."

Teams of experts from space engineering domains work to apply concurrent engineering methods to designing future space missions, providing a collaborative, collective and simultaneous engineering working environment.

"Having the Mediasite content available from all sessions ensures that a permanent record is preserved for future explanation and review," said John Gunner.  "So far the response from the core CDF team has been extremely positive, with team leaders using the content on a regular basis to help understand the design choices and as a consistency check."

ESA has already shown that improved quality in the early stages of a space mission design reduces costs throughout the development cycle and since the CDF launched its Mediasite program in August, it now has the ability to record the decisions and trade-offs made during the conceptual phase of a design.

"Rich media will become an invaluable source of information on mission design, a learning aid for future team participants, and a resource for training team leaders who are a key component of the concurrent engineering process here at ESA," John Gunner said. "Mediasite content has already been used to demonstrate the concurrent engineering process to visitors to the CDF."

Prior to using Mediasite, some of CDF's content had not been recorded. The CDF plans to develop a process to catalogue and index all recorded content ensuring an effective knowledge management for users of the CDF.

"It is rewarding to support not only the expansion of the design-session knowledge library being created by the European Space Agency, but also the groundbreaking ways they are increasing collaboration, communication and efficiency," said Gary Weis, CEO of Sonic Foundry. "Sonic Foundry is proud to partner with an organization of this caliber as they advance their mission."

About European Space Agency

The European Space Agency is Europe's gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe's space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.

About Sonic Foundry®, Inc.

Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO, www.sonicfoundry.com) is the trusted market leader for enterprise webcasting and lecture capture, providing video communication solutions for education, business and government. Powered by the patented Mediasite webcasting platform and Mediasite Events group, the company empowers people to transform the way they communicate online, using video webcasts to bridge time and distance, accelerate research and improve performance. Product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of Sonic Foundry, Inc. or their respective owners.

Certain statements contained in this news release regarding matters that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Because such forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, uncertainties pertaining to continued market acceptance for Sonic Foundry's products, its ability to succeed in capturing significant revenues from media services and/or systems, the effect of new competitors in its market, integration of acquired business and other risk factors identified from time to time in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE Sonic Foundry, Inc.