Percussion Software’s Rhythmyx Recognized by Independent Research Firm as Strong Performer in Web Content Management

WOBURN, MA – September 19, 2005 – Percussion Software, a leading developer of practical software solutions enabling customers to maximize the value and quality of enterprise content, today announced that it has been ranked by Forrester Research as a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave: Web Content Management For Retail, Q3 2005.  Percussion was among the leading Web Content Management (WCM) vendors that were evaluated across 200 criteria in the report, in which several Percussion customer companies were highlighted.  Forrester evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of what it considers to be the top nine WCM vendors. 

The report, principally authored by Forrester analyst Tamara Mendelsohn, underscores the importance of WCM for B2C and B2B sites.  “As online retail competition grows fierce, online sellers look for ways to differentiate their sites and build unique experiences for their consumers,” noted Mendelsohn.  “Many retailers now put a renewed focus on content to provide information to buyers — reviving the initial promise of the Web to combine content and commerce.” 

One area of online retail strategy covered in the report is how global multi-site Web publishing can support international marketing and global branding and online customer experiences.  The report describes how Thrifty Car Rental is differentiating their brand on a global basis by using their WCM system. 

“As retailers turn their e-commerce initiatives toward foreign markets for the next stage of growth, concerns about global brand perception and consistent customer experience emerge,” the report states.  “Firms can leverage WCM investments to help enforce global templates for look and feel as well as manage cross-border collaboration and workflow.  Thrifty Car Rental has set up workflows that send content to translation engines and then through the appropriate country-specific approval process.”

Brad Rosenthal, Director of Internet Strategy for Thrifty Car Rental, notes: “Rhythmyx has served as the cornerstone of our e-commerce efforts since 2003.  Rhythmyx enables us to push beyond the typical CMS solution and implement cutting-edge functionality, with a dramatic impact on our key business challenge: improving our ability to turn more Web shoppers into car renters.” 

A second area where customers are leveraging their investments in WCM, as noted in the report, is multi-channel and multi-site marketing.  “True multi-channel marketing is beginning to emerge as retailers bring dynamic, customized content into the brick-and-mortar environment.  Many retailers invest in additional technology to drive these initiatives, resulting in different systems for in-store media, Web, email, and print because of organizational silos.  Firms should think about these activities more holistically to avoid overlapping investments and leverage content and targeting rules.”

The report goes on to cite two UK-based museums as leading examples of multi-channel WCM. “The Natural History Museum in London uses its WCM system as a central source for artist and exhibit information and then pushes the content to kiosks within the museum and to the Web site.  Another British art institution, Tate, uses its WCM to push content on upcoming events and exhibitions to its Web site and Intranet as well as to printed catalogs via XML.  Like these museums, sellers should design and create content for multi-channel deployment, and then push it through publishing workflows to ensure the correct formatting for each channel — whether to an in-store kiosk or digital sign, wireless handheld, email, or Web, or even RSS.” 

Mike Lowndes, interactive media manager at the Natural History Museum, said last year of the museum’s selection of Percussion’s Rhythmyx to meet its multi-channel needs: “We recognized that we needed to move on from a first-generation content management system to a standards-based solution that offered more robust templating capabilities and greater out of the box functionality.”

After the initial deployment of Rhythmyx at Tate, Simon Grant, head of information systems, talked last year of future plans with Rhythmyx, “As we’re responsible for 40 per cent of our own income generation, we see the Web site as a means of developing new revenue streams in the future, and we’re only just beginning to realise the ways in which Rhythmyx can help us achieve this. Incorporating Rhythmyx into our Web site will make it easier for us to extend our content delivery to other channels, such as SMS and PDAs, in the future. “

Rhythmyx also “provides flexible integration capabilities and is designed to work hand-in-hand with commerce platforms and other delivery applications,” according to Forrester.  “This is ideal for retailers that don’t want to uproot legacy systems but want to add more robust and multi-channel content management,” adding that “the product offers a comprehensive WCM solution – on a par with offerings from much larger vendors.” 

The report continues, “Rhythmyx's architecture is a good fit for most enterprise-class organizations.  The solution is a J2EE, servlet-based application with support for a broad range of market leading application servers and Apache Tomcat.  De-coupled delivery support provided by Rhythmyx enables dynamic content delivery across a wide range of heterogeneous environments as content selection queries are localized for the specific delivery application.”

Percussion CEO, Barry Reynolds, commented, “Whether it’s retailing, financial services, manufacturing, government or education, we focus on making Rhythmyx a robust, full-function WCM solution that truly fits customer needs, including quick implementation, fast time-to-value, and cost-effective customization and scaling.  With Rhythmyx, our goal has always been to deliver the right balance between out-of-the-box functionality and easy customization and we're pleased that Forrester, one of the industry’s leading research firms, is acknowledging our success in helping customers to meet their key Web Content Management challenges." 

About Forrester Research
Forrester is an independent technology research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice about technology's impact on business.  Business, marketing, and IT professionals worldwide collaborate with Forrester to align their technology investments with their business goals.  Forrester offers products and services in four major areas: Research, Data, Consulting, and Community.  Established in 1983, Forrester is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. www.forrester.com

Source:”Web Content Management Scorecard Summary: Percussion Software," Forrester Research, Inc., April, 2005.