MetaCommunications
MetaCommunications is a project management and collaboration Software company, which produces a package of software modules called Workgroups DaVinci.
History
In 1991, MetaCommunications was founded in Iowa City as a "developer of project management software and collaboration tools for marketing and creative departments". They later opened additional offices in St. Petersburg, Russia. According to Gigi Wood, "The company began developing its own software for in-house use and decided the resulting software was worthwhile as its own product line. MetaCommunications divested its design and prepress divisions in 1997 to dedicate itself full-time to commercial software development." In 2003 Graphic Arts Monthly wrote, in an article covering MetaCommunications, for print shops "business management software May Be as significant an investment as printing equipment itself".
Development of Workgroups modules
The company's first module was Job Manager, described by MacWorld as, "a job tracking, costing, and billing system that lets organizations track jobs, capture alterations, and obtain costing and billing information ... offering data collection of employee time/material usage for jobs, analyzing productivity, tracking job costs and status, and generating invoices automatically." It followed this with the job and bid management service Virtual Ticket. In 2004 the company added the Job Definition Format (JDF) Solutions Framework to its Virtual Ticket software, a workflow application which "helps managers automate workflows, track jobs and manage digital assets" according to MacWorld.
That year the company also released Approval Manager, which "offers linear, parallel and cyclic workflow support as well as event-driven e-mail notifications and reminders". The module is compatible with all major online proofing software programs. The company then released its Digital Storage Manager module, a digital asset management solution, in 2005 through its Virtual Ticket program, "a database file system that serves as a central view of both online and offline production files. [Providing] real-time indexing of the files, customizable metadata tags, file search and retrieval and archiving and backup capabilities as well." The package of software is sold as "Workgroups", which is updated with a new version every few years. The company donates subscriptions to its software to some universities and colleges, through its Software for Students program. The current version of Workgroups is Workgroups Davinci.