Issues in multimedia software development

Multimedia has become a topic of high interest, and R&D contributions to multimedia fill piles of CD-ROMs, journals and books. Out in the field however only a comparatively small set of out-of-the-box niche multimedia applications is used; developing customized multimedia applications, tuned to the needs of a particular organization, remains much of a myth, not to speak of integrated enterprises in which full-size multimedia information and communication is used throughout. The MMSD workshop has been organized as an attempt to help filling the gap between the availability of multimedia solutions and their customized, integrated use in the field. This introductory article positions MMSD in the range of multimedia R&D domains, recalls the categories of contributions relevant to software development in general ("solution space"), describes particular characteristics of multimedia software ("problem space") together with corresponding sample research contributions, and positions the contributions to the workshop in these spaces.