Konan Technology Opens US Company - Industry Veteran Richard Eberhart Tapped to Run Operations

Konan Technology Opens US Company - Industry Veteran Richard Eberhart Tapped to Run Operations

Company Establishes New Company to Take Advantage of Growth in Media Asset Management - Positions for Growth in US and Europe

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GLENDALE, Calif., March 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Konan Technology, Inc., a pioneering innovator of Media Asset Management solutions for the corporate, broadcast and content creation markets, today announced changes to its management team and the opening of Konan Digital, Inc. in the US to position the company for its continuing growth and expansion. Richard Eberhart, a visionary in the asset management market and founder of the Global Society for Asset Management (GSAM), has been named its Vice President of Americas/Europe.

According to a leading industry research firm, the Digital Asset Management (DAM) market will grow from roughly $210 million dollars in 2004 to over $5 billion in the next few years. As corporate commerce, service agencies, media companies and production houses evolve their business practices to leverage the explosion of digital media, the role of DAM has evolved from an archive repository to a core component of the media production and distribution chain. This evolution in workflow in both the management and distribution of rich media is now known as Media Asset Management (MAM).

"The market timing is perfect to establish a US base of operations to take advantage of the increasing growth in the media asset management market and with the help of Richard Eberhart, to establish ourselves as a world player of supplying innovative MAM solutions to the broadcast, post production and commercial industries," states Young-Sum Kim, president and CEO of Konan Technology. "Richard's distinguished track record of successes in executive management and business development over the past decade coupled with his knowledge of the asset management market makes him the ideal person to move us to the next stage of growth. His leadership and entrepreneurial experience in driving GSAM to the pinnacle of visibility and companies to consistent financial growth is a testament of what is to come for Konan Digital."

"Konan's open architecture, scalable and standards based MAM solutions, like its KONAN DigitalArc(TM) product family, are poised to make significant inroads into the asset management markets and I am excited to be on-board to help expand the company's reach in the US and Europe," adds Eberhart. "GSAM is now a major force in helping to drive the market acceptance of asset management technology and I look forward to my next challenge in establishing Konan Digital as a major supplier of innovative MAM solutions to the video based communities."

The market trend toward media asset management creates a significant business opportunity for companies like Konan Digital since evolving business dynamics will require companies to effectively manage and leverage rich-media assets into new revenue opportunities. Konan's modularized MAM solutions seamlessly integrates sophisticated software for the automatic indexing, cataloging and retrieval of video with a scalable and open system architecture to grow as user requirements grow. "Our modular MAM solutions, which are highly available, robust and scalable, removes the complexity and workflow deficiencies associated with the previous generation of bulky proprietary systems -- creating a new price performance paradigm for the media asset management market," concludes Eberhart.

Richard Eberhart has been a highly visible member of the Asset Management, Broadband, Streaming Media and Interactive Television industries for the past decade. Most recently, he founded the highly successful Global Society for Asset Management, whose mission is to accelerate the uptake of Asset Management solutions across all industry verticals. As a leading consultant for many tier one media and entertainment clients, Eberhart's accomplishments included end-to-end technology consulting for the creation of Sony's Screenblast Project; Fox Televisions DRM prototype; Disney's Go.com; Universal Music's entry into the streaming media and interactive television technologies, The Viewing Lounge; Streaming media strategy for Clear Channel and the development of a DAM strategy for Herbalife. Earlier in his career, he honed his executive management skills as General Manager of First Media Services Network, a national ISP providing streaming media consulting, co-location and hosting services. Subsequently he spearheaded the launch of the broadband / future TV / enterprise asset management practice with global consulting firm razorfish. Eberhart also served as Senior Director of Business Development for Germany based Blue Order, Europe's market leader in Media Asset Management; Senior Technical Consultant for Autonomy as well as Vice President of North America for England's DREmedia, makers of advanced audio and video indexing and asset management solutions.

About Konan Digital

Konan Digital Inc., established in California, USA in 2005, is a US subsidiary of Korean based Konan Technology (www.konantech.com), a leading provider of Media Asset Management solutions to the media & entertainment, education, government, hospital, and enterprise markets. With a strong, in-house research and development group, Konan delivers high business value to its clients through the supply of advanced technology and its products and services are designed to provide customers with solutions for the entire life cycle of digital assets management from ingesting, archiving, managing, searching, editing to the distribution of digital contents.

Konan Technology is a patent holder of MPEG-7 International Standard and several other core technologies related to digital contents processing. For more information, please contact Konan Digital at: 655 N. Central Ave. 17th Floor, Glendale, CA 91203; Ph: 818-649-8655; or visit the company's website at www.konandigital.com.

Source: Konan Technology, Inc.

CONTACT: Curtis Chan of CHAN & ASSOCIATES, INC., +1-714-447-4993, ext. 100, or fax, +1-714-447-6020, cj_chan@chanandassoc.com, for Konan Technology, Inc.

Web site: http://www.konandigital.com/

Web site: http://www.konantech.com/

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