SAM to acquire Mantrics

SAM is acquiring Mantrics, an Italian workflow and asset management specialist. Mantrics is a privately-held joint venture, established in 2008 by Digital Video and Video Progetti.

SAM has establsihed itself in the MAM and workflow management arena with Momentum, launched in 2014. The core technology behind Momentum was originally developed by Mantrics. With the company purchase now agreed, the development team in Italy is working closely with the SAM team in the UK to push the ongoing expansion of Momentum and its powerful toolset.

Neil Maycock, EVP of Marketing at SAM & MD of Mantrics, said: “When we were looking at entering this market sector several years ago, after considerable research we identified Mantrics’ technology as having the core capabilities that we were looking for.  It allowed us to enter the marketplace in 2014 far more rapidly than if we were developing from the ground up. We have taken this integration a considerable step further with this acquisition, allowing Momentum developers to really push further forwards in what is an evolving landscape.”

When SAM – Snell at that point –  looked at existing providers as part of its research, they appeared to fall into two camps. The first comprises systems that handle complex workflows that meet the requirements of major customers. This often means a lot of bespoke work and coding/scripting. At the other end, there were – and still are – products with simple drag-and-drop UIs but they tend to be focused on specific applications – like file delivery – and can be constrained in what they can accomplish.

“With Momentum you have the best of both worlds with users able to define and manage their own workflows via an intuitive user interface while also being able to scale to handle complex real-world scenarios. Modern businesses aren’t static: they are evolving rapidly and are very dynamic. The ability for customers to be able to grow to support different platforms/formats and to scale Momentum accordingly, without having to come back to us every time something changes, is very important,” Maycock added.

Momentum is targeted at both the production and playout side of SAM’s business and this is one of its core, unifying products.

Claudio Mattei, Managing Director with Digital Video, said: “When Digital Video decided to invest in workflow management technologies, we started from a strong background in building products for professional markets. This expertise, developed at a time when the broadcast industry was still heavily relying on tape, has given us a significant competitive advantage. The sale of Mantrics to SAM is the next logical step to push both the ongoing development and sales of Momentum. It will also increase the speed of integration across the SAM product portfolio. We are proud of the working relationship that we have developed with SAM and we look forward to deploying our skills across other joint projects and products for the broadcast industry.”

Carlo Struzzi, Managing Director, Video Progetti, said: “We have worked very closely with SAM on its Momentum product and we decided to sell Mantrics in order to create a stronger market position with full integration into the SAM portfolio. Mantrics was the first MAM supplier to create a powerful, totally integrated workflow manager.  Combined with an easy to use graphical user interface, which allows complex business rules to be applied across a tapeless infrastructure, it has proved immediately successful.”