Sonic Foundry Announces Winners of the Sixth Annual Rich Media Impact Awards

MADISON, Wis., April 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sonic Foundry, Inc. (Nasdaq: SOFO), the recognized market leader for rich media webcasting and knowledge management, today announced the winners of the Rich Media Impact Awards, recognizing achievement in improving information accessibility, cost savings, efficiency and productivity through Mediasite. Winners were honored during a luncheon at UNLEASH 2010 in Madison, Wis., and the awards were also webcasted live via Mediasite to a global virtual audience.

"This year we saw exceptional programs emerging from all sectors that are succeeding in spite of economic uncertainty. From the Michigan Public Health Institute, which solved critical communication and economic issues while seeing a return on investment, to student Jeff Tippy, who positioned himself ahead of his peers by using Mediasite to gain competitive ground in the job market, we are so proud of the winners and the wide range of solutions presented," said Rob Lipps, executive vice president of Sonic Foundry.

To view the awards ceremony visit www.sonicfoundry.com/awards2010/?sm=6.  

2010 Rich Media Impact Award Winners:

Enterprise Award (Tie): recognizes a company that improved its business outcomes through rich media communication. For the first time Sonic Foundry recognizes two winners: Autodesk and Cadence Design Systems.

Autodesk is a 2010 winner for its use of Mediasite to improve internal corporate communications by designing a studio to record presentations for employees. Before Mediasite, Autodesk had limited resources, and was spending $40,000 per year on only four presentations. With Mediasite the company now records dozens of presentations throughout the year, at a savings of $20,000 per year by reducing travel expenses.

Cadence Design Systems is also a 2010 winner for making Mediasite the key platform in its communication strategy, enabling employees, partners and customers to connect without boundaries. After travel restrictions threatened to hinder Cadence's annual conference attendance, the company created a blended event, lowering costs by 90 percent while maintaining the same number of live attendees.

Excellence in Education Award: recognizes a higher education institution that enhanced learning and outreach through rich media. The 2010 winner is Massey University Information Technology Services. In the past five years, Massey University has gone from filming lectures and extensive post production to synchronize the video with PowerPoint slides, to a fully automated lecture capture infrastructure via Mediasite. Faculty adoption grew exponentially yet Massey maintains the growing lecture capture program without adding additional staff.

Facility Design Award: recognizes a Mediasite customer and/or professional AV design or consulting firm that created innovative rich media rooms and facilities. The 2010 winner is the Stephen M. Ross School of Business University of Michigan for using Mediasite to create a digital culture that defines student life in the 21st century. As a key component in the new 270,000 square foot building, Mediasite is seamlessly integrated into every classroom and auditorium alongside state of the art room control systems and audio-visual equipment. The faculty adoption curve is growing because of Mediasite's ease of use, and the School accomplished this without additional technical or event support.

Global Reach Award: recognizes any successful initiative that connected the international community through rich media. The 2010 winner is Energy Center of Wisconsin. The Energy Center went from having statewide and occasionally regional reach to webcasting to international audiences overnight simply by introducing a live webinar format alongside their on-demand training webcasts.

Government Award: recognizes a local, state or federal government initiative that implemented rich media for training and outreach. The 2010 winner is Michigan Public Health Institute (MPHI) for using rich media webcasting to assist them in overcoming public information and outreach challenges within many state agencies in Michigan. With the help of Mediasite, MPHI worked with Michigan Women, Infants and Children program to produce multi-language constituent-outreach to educate families about a new food program. MPHI also worked with the Unemployment Insurance Agency to effectively inform and answer questions from unemployed workers. In addition to helping MPHI overcome communication difficulties in these instances, MPHI has also lowered training costs, seeing a 256 percent return on investment by using Mediasite in lieu of face-to-face training.

Healthcare Award: recognizes an organization that implemented rich media to benefit health and wellness. The 2010 winner is Videosurgery for its use of Mediasite to webcast live surgery. Changes in healthcare in recent years mean surgical students have less of an opportunity to step inside the operating room.  According to Videosurgery, allowing surgical students to watch live webcasts gives them unprecedented access, lets them appreciate unforeseen complications that may occur and learn from professionals how to react to trauma in real time.

Prolific Use Award: recognizes an organization that has dramatically scaled its rich media program to achieve broad deployment across its enterprise, or record number of presentations, views or audiences. The 2010 winner is North Carolina State University Distance Education & Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) for implementing the Mediasite platform into 16 classrooms and six mini studios. DELTA has 45 Mediasite ML units, is serving well over 6,000 students and is experiencing its second year of triple-digit growth, with more than 10,000 presentations accounting for more than 200,000 views in 2009 alone. In the College of Engineering, Mediasite supports 13 online graduate degree programs, a computer programmer certificate and two distance Bachelor of Science in engineering programs with 1,200 students from 65 counties, 33 states and eight foreign countries.

Rapid ROI Award: recognizes an organization that used rich media to quickly achieve a measurable ROI in its training, communications or outreach initiatives. The 2010 winner is Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) for integrating and enhancing their established educational offerings, reducing travel costs and meeting the growing demand for online healthcare training events. In 2009, OHA increased its live webcasted events, which not only helped them expand their reach, but also further enhanced their standing as a valued partner in the health care sector. By adopting a pay-per-view model, OHA's educational webcasts now see a 280 percent return on investment, generating nearly $100,000 per year in new revenue.

Scholastic Achievement Award: recognizes a school district or other organization serving the K-12 educational community that harnessed the power of rich media to improve communication, learning and outreach. The 2010 winner is University of Auckland, Faculty of Education. Last year, the University created Digital Pathways Development, a program to help regional schools prepare for New Zealand's new scholastic curriculum. The focus of the work is the integration of career education. Using Mediasite helps the University share information from specialists and remove training and travelling costs, all while reducing the program's carbon footprint.

Student Impact Award: recognizes an individual student, as well as his/her college or university, whose educational experience has been enhanced through rich media. The 2010 winner is Jeff Tippy of University of Toledo, College of Business Administration and Edward H. Schmidt School of Professional Sales. By working with campus instructors Tippy leveraged Mediasite in a number of ways including: critiquing recorded student role-playing sales techniques in a sales competition, using recorded lectures to study and improve test scores and gaining access to hiring companies through online catalogs containing interviews with hiring recruiters.  

About Sonic Foundry®, Inc.

Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO, www.sonicfoundry.com) is the global leader for rich media webcasting and knowledge management, providing enterprise communication solutions for 1,800 customers in education, business and government. Powered by Mediasite, the patented webcasting platform which automates the capture, management, delivery and search of lectures, online training and briefings, Sonic Foundry empowers people to transform the way they communicate. Through the Mediasite platform and its Events Services group, the company helps customers connect a dynamic, evolving world of shared knowledge and envisions a future where learners and workers around the globe use webcasting 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.