Just to make you laugh : I worked as a webdesigner for a retail chain, and we have bought Adobe's Scene7 which does quite the same job. It was a 102 000$ / 2yr deal.
I've used Scene 7 for the past five years and think that it is a great product. The cost may seem expensive if you just look at the dynamic resize/crop technology and hosting, but it is a good solution for digital asset management for e-commerce. Our photo studio and re-touchers upload directly into Scene 7 and it has simplified the entire workflow.
I agree that Scene7 is a good product, but really overpriced, though my company was happy to pay for it because it was like a magic patch applied on their shitty worflow.