The roots of Chuckwalla’s technology date back to 1992, when Chuckwalla’s original founder and Chief Technology Officer Ashwin Shah began innovative work in the area of digital asset management (DAM). Initially focused on developing custom digital asset management solutions for large organizations, elements of the custom solutions led to DAM toolkits that were marketed to cutting-edge developers. After securing venture capital in the mid 1990s, the toolkits led to the birth of version1.0 and evolved into today’s Chuckwalla v5.

More than a decade later, with 150-plus developer-years and literally thousands of users, Chuckwalla stands today as one of the most market-proven enterprise-class digital asset management technologies available.

Its evolution is a testament to the loyal and pioneering customers who have continually provided product feedback coupled with Chuckwalla’s never-ending commitment to listen and collaborate.

Timeline
1992		Ashwin Shah (Chuckwalla’s founder and CTO) leverages his years of experience in database design to develop a custom database for storing multimedia files that forms the basis of custom development projects.
1995		MediaWay (predecessor of Chuckwalla) formed to market the initial “product-ized” version of this database, MediaAssets 1.5, including client-server architecture.
1997		MediaAssets 2 released which added a native Macintosh client, web access, extended support for Quark Xpress layout files and full text indexing. This version initiated support for Windows NT as well.
1999		MediaWay Foundation 3 begins shipping, which added support for SQL-based databases Microsoft SQL and Oracle as well as many more file formats.
2000		Company changes its name to Chuckwalla and releases its initial Software Developers Kit (SDK) for direct, programmatic access. Leading application service providers, realizing the power of the technology, begin deployment in their data centers, hosting assets for multiple enterprises from a single server.
2001		Management-led buyout leads to formation of employee owned company.
2002		Chuckwalla begins development with Microsoft .NET
2003		Chuckwalla 4.5 adds integration with most Microsoft Enterprise Servers, the next generation SDK, Hot Folder Utility and more robust file format support.
2004		Built firmly on Microsoft .NET framework, Chuckwalla v5 is released. Chuckwalla is accessible as a Web Service. Next-generation Net Client offers state-of-the-art features including dynamic format transformations, advanced reporting, edit control list generation for video production and watermarking.
Today		Leveraging the power of a comtemporary service-oriented architecture, Chuckwalla supports integration efforts with best-of-breed BPM and workflow tools, thereby streamlining creation, production and delivery of rich content accros multiple communication channels.