Scene7, part of Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced Image Portal 2.1, a new version of its hosted media management solution designed to improve processes associated with collecting, managing and distributing media used by internal and external partners.

New to this version of Image Portal is the 'contributor' feature which enables third-party users to upload media assets and metadata into a company’s secure system where content automatically becomes available in corporate-approved formats. This feature is administrator-controlled and enables contributors to browse, manage and edit their input.

"With this release of Image Portal, our clients can now offer their partners a self-serve, ‘no touch’ system for delivering and receiving assets anytime, anywhere," said Doug Mack, vice president of Hosted and Consumer Solutions at Adobe. "All assets added, regardless of format or size, are automatically normalized for use in Web and print publishing, as well as in other marketing and sales initiatives. This results in tremendous production cost savings for both our clients and their partners.

According to the official press release, other performance and usability improvements in Image Portal 2.1 include enhancements to its group permissions feature allowing portal users to now write and delete files and folders in addition to previewing them. There is also new support for Zip files and improved portal user list filtering capabilities.