After extensive international review, Mediasite chosen for speed, efficiency and comprehensiveness

MADISON, Wis., Jan. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sonic Foundry, Inc. (Nasdaq: SOFO), the recognized market leader for rich media webcasting and knowledge management, today announced London Business School, counted among the world's best according to the Financial Times and BusinessWeek, selected Mediasite as its class capture platform.

"All major business schools are coping with an insatiable demand, primarily student-driven, for video and podcasting," said Russell Altendorff, Director of Information Systems for London Business School. "The demographics of our students are changing. We see an increasing volume of Executive MBA students who are highly mobile, and with our new centers in Dubai and Hong Kong, over the last two years we increasingly have a whole cohort of students taught abroad and as a result we need to deploy more distributed learning."

The School had already been filming lectures and events extensively, but sought to automate this process to more efficiently meet the huge demand for a greater volume of filmed classes and events. Staff will begin capturing courses for the Executive MBA program this spring, and the plan is to then scale to record lectures for both Full-Time MBA and Executive Education programs.

"Using Mediasite, we can not only provide online content as a service to our customers, but also as an adjunct way to support the learning process, so learning can occur not only through reading, reflection and face-to-face teaching, but also can be reinforced through access to instruction online," said Altendorff.

Prior to selecting Mediasite, the School completed an extensive international assessment of course capture solutions, including a comprehensive benchmarking review, site visits at peer business schools to study their respective capture strategies and formal, scientific evaluation of responses to the School's publicly-issued RFP.

"During our review, we were impressed with the comprehensiveness of the solution, how Mediasite addresses the very real and practical day-to-day demands that we as a support organization meet along the pipeline from class to website," said Altendorff. "Mediasite offered more administrative tools and diagnostics, more comprehensive features than its competitors, and that was important for us because we aim for 100 percent up time for all technology in a lecture theatre. For us, the more slick the back office is, the better, and Mediasite is a mature and well-developed product."

"We were equally impressed by the service levels of Sonic Foundry and the quality of Mediasite's install base. It was very powerful to talk with people who are using Mediasite and have been for some time, and to hear them speak so highly of their experiences with the product and the company," added Altendorff.

London Business School will integrate the Mediasite EX Server platform within their Microsoft Active Directory and LDAP directories for security and user authorization. Mediasite RL Recorder will be integrated with AMX room control and automation systems in one of the school's major lecture theatres, which also features remote control network cameras, wireless microphones for presenters, two display screens and a new touch screen, light pen PC system. Mediasite ML Recorder will be used in a mobile rack system to capture guest lectures and special events throughout the campus.

"We are proud to partner with an organization of the caliber of London Business School. It is rewarding to support the expansion and internationalization of their offerings, and to work together to realize a shared vision for streamlined, scalable lecture capture," said Rimas Buinevicius, chairman and CEO of Sonic Foundry.

The patented Mediasite webcasting and content management system quickly and cost-effectively automates the capture, management, delivery and search of rich media presentations that combine audio, video and accompanying graphics for live or on-demand viewing.

With our higher education Mediasite community now topping 600 colleges and universities, Sonic Foundry is highlighting customer stories that exemplify the convergence of technology and education. Through webinars, news and speaking engagements, Mediasite users around the globe are sharing their best practices for using lecture capture to bridge time and distance, accelerate research and improve academic performance.

About London Business School

Founded in 1964 and based in the world's best connected city, London Business School (www.london.edu) exists to develop break-through insights and successful leaders that have a positive impact on business around the world. The School's faculty, from over 30 countries, is grouped into seven subject areas - Accounting; Economics; Finance; Management Science and Operations; Marketing; Organisational Behaviour; and Strategic and International Management.

The School awards 800 degrees every year, across MBA, Executive MBA, Masters in Finance, Sloan Fellow and PhD programmes. The Executive Education team offers a portfolio of over 20 open programmes as well as custom-designed programmes developed to meet the specific needs of organizations. London Business School is consistently ranked among the top ten business schools in the world.

About Sonic Foundry(R), Inc.

Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO, www.sonicfoundry.com) is the global leader for rich media webcasting and knowledge management, providing enterprise communication solutions for more than 1,200 customers in education, business and government. Powered by Mediasite, the patented webcasting platform which automates the capture, management, delivery and search of lectures, online training and briefings, Sonic Foundry empowers people to transform the way they communicate. Through the Mediasite platform and its Events Services group, the company helps customers connect a dynamic, evolving world of shared knowledge and envisions a future where learners and workers around the globe use webcasting to bridge time and distance, accelerate research and improve performance.

Certain statements contained in this news release regarding matters that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Because such forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, uncertainties pertaining to continued market acceptance for Sonic Foundry's products, its ability to succeed in capturing significant revenues from media services and/or systems, the effect of new competitors in its market, integration of acquired business and other risk factors identified from time to time in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SOURCE Sonic Foundry, Inc.