For more than a decade, VRX Studios shot and accumulated thousands of pictures for its customers — mostly hotels.
By 2011, the Vancouver photography services company had more than 20 terabytes of photos throughout its systems.
“We were having a really hard time managing all of those assets for our customers as well as internally,” said VRX founder David MacLaren.
“We weren’t able to find a system that met our needs. We needed something that was globally accessible, because those 8,000 hotel customers were spread around the world.”
So VRX developed its own in-house solution using Microsoft’s Windows Azure, a platform MacLaren described as the “holy grail of cloud offerings” due to its cost effectiveness and flexibility.
Staff conceived of the architecture before developers were brought in to build the new system.
Fast-forward three years later and the potential of the company’s new digital asset management system (DAMS) has overtaken the photography side of the business, according to MacLaren.
Earlier this month, VRX sold of its photography division for $3 million and rebranded itself as MediaValet.
Instead, the new company will concentrate its efforts on offering other businesses easy solutions when it comes to managing their own digital assets.
“Over the past few years, we’ve seen a seismic shift occur in how companies think about software and IT,” said MacLaren, now MediaValet’s CEO.
“The market opportunity ahead of MediaValet is exponentially larger than that of VRX Studios.”
The photography company will maintain its current staff of about 60, while vice-president of sales Tinu Mathur takes over as president.
Meanwhile, MacLaren said MediaValet has nearly 30 employees and is planning to ramp up research and development, marketing and sales with the proceeds of VRX’s sale.
