Press Release

Percussion Software, a leading developer of Web Content Management (WCM) software for multi-channel, customer-centric applications, today introduced Rhythmyx™ 6, the newest version of its award-winning enterprise-ready WCM System.  Rhythmyx 6 extends Percussion’s leadership position in the WCM market by providing a robust platform for more easily managing customer-centric content across multiple sites, multiple channels and multiple lines of business.

Among Rhythmyx 6’s major new features are support for the Velocity templating language, a new Developer’s Workbench based on the popular Eclipse Interface Framework and a Web Services Software Developer’s Kit (WSDK) with an enhanced Web services API that make it significantly easier for Rhythmyx implementers to support a Web Services and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach to integration. Another new application available with Rhythmyx 6 is Web Forms.

Rhythmyx 6 is tailored for organizations that require seamless support for multiple Web properties, with the kind of easy content reuse that customer-centric business applications require.  These and other new features of Rhythmyx 6 enable enterprises to build Web sites with frequently updated, persuasive content that is engaging to their customers. 

“Organizations are rethinking their Web initiatives with the information consumer in mind.  That means providing an access point to applicable, accurate, and timely content based on the specific business or personal needs of the user,” said Michael Maziarka, a director at InfoTrends, Inc., the leading market research and strategic consulting firm for the digital imaging and document solutions industry.  “Customer experience, multi-channel demands and enterprise content interoperability are driving next generation content initiatives.  Enterprise customers are looking for Web content management solutions that can actively manage the information demands of customer-centric applications across multiple content delivery channels as well as multiple sites and lines of business.” 

Examples of the type of marketing-oriented, customer-centric applications that benefit from a WCM platform include sales promotion campaigns, Web-based lead generation, email marketing, multi-channel, multi-product launches, e-commerce, accessibility, globalization/localization, wireless self-service, customer loyalty and feedback, in-store kiosks, direct sales portals, event management and subscription services. 

Rhythmyx 6 is available next month and supports Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Linux and Sun Solaris platforms.  

“Rhythmyx 6 WCM will provide us with the foundation for content-driven, customer-centric business applications that we are looking forward to implementing," said Janet Blais, Director of Information Technology at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario in
Toronto. "It will help us deliver consistent branding and user experiences for a wide variety of external and internal target audiences, including Institute members and prospective members, students, employees, partners and the public.”

“Maximizing return-on-content drives top-line revenue growth,” said Percussion CEO Barry Reynolds.  “Rhythmyx 6 can easily deliver the same communications and branding across multiple customer touchpoints, multiple Web sites and multiple delivery channels, in order to ensure consistency of brand and customer experience.  This enables our customers to improve their return-on-content, providing a strategic advantage that often far outweighs the benefits of cost savings alone when deploying content management.”

New in Rhythmyx 6
Rhythmyx 6’s new three-tier WCM architecture enables better management of frequently changing content for multi-channel, customer-centric business applications.  It also enables “enterprise-ready” WCM by making it easier for Rhythmyx to interoperate with other enterprise content management systems.  Rhythmyx 6’s nine major new enhancements and applications include:

• New Custom User Interfaces – The new WSDK enables organizations to create Custom User Interfaces that sit on top of the Rhythmyx WCM Application and Core Services Layers, and deliver bundled content management capabilities customized for certain groups of users, or custom views of content.
• Web Forms – Web Forms are used for capturing any and all information from Web site visitors and include event registration forms, short surveys, feedback, newsletter subscriptions, polls and much more.  This new capability allows Rhythmyx business users to design their own web forms easily through a WYSIWYG editor that enables the user to drag-and-drop fields and labels onto the form
• FastForward for WCM Enhancements – Rhythmyx 6 offers several major new features that support faster, easier implementation.  FastForward for WCM, a content-driven application designed to speed implementation and deliver more functionality out-of-the-box, now takes advantage of Rhythmyx 6’s new Velocity-based templates.  FastForward also implements taxonomy management in new ways, making content categories more extensible and customizable.
• New Web Services SDK  – The new Web Services Developer’s Kit (WSDK) with enhanced API makes it much easier for Rhythmyx implementers to support Web Services.  A full Web Services API that is now more streamlined and modular is provided, including code samples and documentation on how to integrate Rhythmyx with external systems, tools and applications.  Designed to support enterprise-ready WCM, the WSDK enables bulk capture and ongoing intake of content from external applications and repositories, either scheduled or event-based.
• New Developer Workbench – Based on the Eclipse Interface Framework, an extensible, open-source development platform and application framework, the new Developer’s Workbench makes it easier to implement Rhythmyx.  Targeted to users with webmaster skills, the new workbench is easier to use and speeds implementation time with an intuitive, wizard-driven interface for creating all new CMS objects including content types, templates, views, communities, menus, relationship types, keywords and more.  It also supports third-party tool integration using Eclipse’s well-documented plug-in model.
• Enhanced Assembly Services – Rhythmyx 6 introduces numerous enhancements to enable easier generation of dynamic sites, including dynamic query support via JSR 170, conditional processing support and namespace declaration.
• New Velocity Template Language – Rhythmyx 6 adds Velocity, an easy-to-use template language that combines simple markup with formatting standards. Velocity makes it dramatically easier to create dynamic, rules-based formatting, such as alternating row colors for lists or splitting long lists into multi-column formats.  Also included are a built-in Velocity Editor and predefined Velocity macros.
• Core Server Performance & Scalability Enhancements – Rhythmyx 6’s Core Server enhancements offer better scalability and improved performance and interoperability of the Rhythmyx server, which reduces the cost of ownership and/or deployment.  The Rhythmyx server now delivers improved performance when larger numbers of users are connected.