Company Will Continue to Develop Features for North American Users As Sales and Support Move Online
Forbidden Technologies, maker of the Forscene online post-production platform, is closing its office in Burbank, CA, as part of a move to an indirect sales and support model for North America.
Forbidden Technologies CEO Stephen Streater told StudioDaily that the evolution of the market for cloud-based editing means that it's no longer necessary to have a dedicated sales office in order to get the industry's attention. "We launched this 10 years ago, before the word cloud was invented, and we had to do a lot of face-to-face selling to explain what the cloud was," Streater said. "Now, people hear about it from a colleague who is using it, or they read about it in an article, and they email us for a free trial account and give us a go. So we're moving much more toward direct, digital marketing to attract interest, rather than cold-calling."
Paid support is provided primarily through online chat, which is built into the browser-based editing interface, Streater said, and is being added to Forscene's administration interface. With a selection of short how-to videos easily available online, Streater said, the system is mostly self-explanatory."We don't get that many support calls," he said. "I think the average user gives us one support question a year. Most people don't need support."
Still, the system can handle complex tasks. Over five million hours of pro video content has gone through the Forscene platform to date, Streater said, noting that it was used most famously during the 2012 Summer Olympics, when NBC and Google partnered to publish events and edited video to the web (via Google's YouTube) straight out of the Forscene interface. "If you have a website, we can show you how to integrate it with Forscene, edit your videos, and publish HD or 4K straight to the website, through your CMS, with titles and transitions and color-correction."
Forbidden is continuing to develop features in demand in the U.S. market, including closed captioning, multicam, and improved drop-frame support.
