Here is the scenario: Your Web design production team just finished a beautiful spread for a client complete with the latest Flash animation and Shockwave plug-ins. You go live and now your client wants to make major changes. So, the first thing you do is order more take-out. The second – get Sitespring.
That’s the story from Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) and they’re sticking to it.
The San Francisco-based Web design software maker Monday announced its launching Sitespring, a new Web-based application the company designed for managing the Web site production process. The system is based on Macromedia’s Java-based application server JRun.
“We have talked with hundreds of Web teams, learning about the many challenges that designers, developers, and clients have working together in producing Web sites,” says Macromedia president Kevin Lynch. “Sitespring is the result of those discussions, providing the glue that connects products and people, working the way that Web teams work.
The program starts at $1,999 per server, which includes licenses for three named Web team members and unlimited client access.
Sitespring has a file management system that uses transparent file versioning and archiving. That way the files are protected and the Web team is always working on the correct file versions. You also get e-mail notifications for alerts and updates to manage your contact with contractors or freelancers. The application also works extremely well with Dreamweaver and UltraDev – Macromedia’s two development software programs.
Because no two designers work the same, Macromedia set up the system to work on Mac or Windows PCs running Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.
“It is really nice to be able to have an overview of an entire project, a snapshot of where my team is at any given point, both for me and my clients,” says Jeffrey Veen, a partner at San Francisco-based design studio Adaptive Path LLC. “We’ve worked on some of the largest Web sites in the world, with thousands and thousands of files, each with multiple versions. Unlike most file systems that we’ve experimented with, Sitespring is specifically designed for that sort of task.
The first Beta version of Sitespring is expected to be available in July with the full version due out in August.