Xinet Digital is a cloud-based platform for digital agencies to manage the distribution of their creative work across multiple clients and is an alternative to FTP and static websites.

North Plains said that Xinet Digital would enable easy set up and deployment of branded portal sites where clients can access and interact with agency deliverables on a 24/7 basis.

Xinet Central ties satellite Xinet servers into an enterprise-scale digital asset management (DAM) system and is aimed at global agencies and content-producing enterprises that want to link together the assets being produced by separate creative teams.

Both products are enabled by North Plains' ConnectR technology, which was announced in December and is a so-called interoperability layer that aims to make it easier for different locally installed and cloud-based DAM platforms to share assets.

It streamlines the transfer of assets and related metadata between North Plains products and facilitates repurposing of assets.

Explaining the concept in an interview with PrintWeek in December, North Plains chief executive James Christopher said: "ConnectR connects Xinet and Telescope together so if you have a hybrid environment, you will be able to work in the production asset management system, Xinet, and you will be able to select an asset and push it to the DAM system and it will move the original content, it will move the meta data, it will move the previews, and it will make it all available in the hosted solution." said Christopher.

ConnectR has been designed to do away with the time-consuming and potentially costly configuration of multiple pieces of software and while its initial focus has been on connecting Xinet with North Plains' enterprise-scale DAM system, Telescope, the company has said that it plans to connect other modules in future, including third party software.