Widen Enterprises Names New CEO

PR Log (Press Release) – Mar 25, 2009 – Widen Enterprises, a Madison, Wisconsin-based premedia and software services provider; announced it has named Matthew Gonnering, 32, as the company’s new chief executive officer.  Gonnering will build upon the company’s 60 year tradition of pioneering new tools and technologies to better serve marketing and creative professionals throughout the world.

Gonnering replaces Reed Widen, who will be retaining the President and Chairman of the Board roles.  Widen Enterprises is now the 8th largest prepress services firm in North America in addition to developing and supporting digital asset management software for creative and marketing workflows for Fortune 500 enterprises, SMBs, non-profits and government agencies.  Widen now commands over ten percent of the global Digital Asset Management (DAM) business across Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers.

“It is critical to the success of any organization to be able to make effective use of their digital assets to build brand equity and demonstrate consistency in the markets,” said Gonnering.  “The amount of digital content is certainly not going to decrease anytime soon.  The formats for content, such as video, audio and images, are only going to increase.  We supply simple, secure solutions to control and repurpose that digital content and our unique expertise will be the basis of Widen’s continuing growth.”

Gonnering said over 50,000 users now interact with Widen systems in 120 different countries across six continents.  Since 2004, he said the Widen software business unit has averaged over 27-percent revenue increases in addition to adding an average of 48% more customers each year.  In the same time frame, Widen has also averaged an almost 28-percent increase in new hires each year.

Market analysts Frost & Sullivan recently projected the DAM Software-as-a-Service market (SaaS) to expand at a very aggressive 30-percent plus annual rate as opposed to the 20+ percent for installed technology solutions.  It said the SaaS model has started gaining much wider acceptance across vertical industries.  

Gonnering said a major reason Widen has been able to position itself within the marketing and creative landscape is their premedia and color management expertise.  “It’s one thing to be a software provider that writes and delivers code but it is another thing to understand the content that the software will be managing with excruciating detail,” said Gonnering.  “We have leveraged our creative workflow and color management expertise over 60 years and we understand the intricacies of images and video files which is why customers want us to manage their digital assets.  We just get it.”

Gonnering also communicates that Widen creates an environment where customers are never again left hanging with a technology investment that gets antiquated rapidly.  Widen releases upgrades four times each year that involves major enhancements to software functionality, performance, infrastructure and security.  

“We pride ourselves in being able to listen to the unarticulated demand of the marketplace,” said Gonnering.  “Customers are trying to ask for it but they don’t know exactly how to say it, which makes our customer interaction and long-term investments in products and services critical to future success.”

About Widen Enterprises, Inc:
Based in Madison, WI, Widen has honed its more than 60 years of experience in premedia and color management specifically for assisting customers build brand equity and support consistent brand representation across print and web communications. Through its inventive suite of web-based digital asset management applications, Widen software services provides marketing networks with real-time web-based access to the clients' digital asset libraries that subsequently eliminates manual search and file preparation time, costs related to replacing images and videos that cannot be located, and the added cost for hardware, software and upgrades.