IDG's InfoWorld Goes Live With New Web Site, Content Managed by Percussion's Rhythmyx Content Management System

Business Wire, Feb 5, 2003

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

STONEHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 5, 2003

Experienced CMS User Implements Rhythmyx

for Cost-Effective Scalability and Powerful Flexibility

Percussion Software, the first content management vendor committed to lowering the total cost of ownership for content management, today announced that IDG's InfoWorld Media Group has gone live with a new version of its flagship web site, InfoWorld.com, based on Percussion's Rhythmyx content management system.

With over 20 years of collective content management experience behind them, InfoWorld chose Rhythmyx to power their redesigned web site to ensure the fastest publishing of content for their readers. By separating content production from delivery, Rhythmyx' unique publishing architecture not only allows InfoWorld to publish breaking news in record time, but also guarantees their readers access to the content on the site without experiencing delays.

"With Rhythmyx, we can scale our delivery systems on our own terms, which is extremely important in our high-volume, fast-paced environment where breaking news can spike traffic significantly in minutes," said InfoWorld CTO, Chad Dickerson.

InfoWorld provides in-depth news coverage and evaluation of technology products for Senior IT professionals. These professionals rely on InfoWorld.com for real-time information and news analysis, as well as in-depth research, strategic analysis, product evaluation and access to an interactive community of their technology peers. Using Rhythmyx to produce content, InfoWorld.com provides news and information more quickly and efficiently, enabling IT professionals to make fast and intelligent purchasing decisions.

"Our staff is very experienced with content management systems, and we have been disappointed in the past with some of the systems on the market," Dickerson added. "Other systems we tried were a bottleneck in the content process and couldn't keep pace with breaking news cycles and user demand. Even worse, they required a heavy technology investment to scale, and consumed precious technical resources while forcing us to write code for proprietary APIs. Rhythmyx does not have these drawbacks, and once we began working with it, the excitement started growing throughout our organization."

Rhythmyx has an advanced, engine-based architecture that enables implementers to use graphical interfaces for content production, without relying on coding. Once the content is finalized, Rhythmyx uses its Publishing Services capabilities to publish formatted or unformatted content to any external relational database, regardless of schema, also without requiring any coding. This capability provides customers like InfoWorld lower costs, fewer points of failure, increased performance and a faster adoption timeframe. In addition, Rhythmyx is a 100 percent standards-based content management system, relying on industry standards such as Java, XML, XSL, SOAP, HTML, and JavaScript to provide system extensibility.

Rhythmyx will be used by 35 to 40 content contributors to the InfoWorld.com site. In addition to relying on Rhythmyx for content publishing and delivery, InfoWorld also will make use of its Active Assembly feature which allows InfoWorld editors to adjust content layout graphically without requiring any programming.

"Rhythmyx offers a comprehensive solution for content management challenges like the rapid production and delivery environment at InfoWorld.com," said Barry Reynolds, president and CEO of Percussion Software. "As InfoWorld's content owners have discovered, Rhythmyx reduces the time and skill level required to create, manage and deliver content, eliminating costly programmer intervention and scaling to meet current and future demand."

Percussion integrates its content management methodology into Rhythmyx, delivering a product-based solution that transfers ownership of the content back to the users who produce it. Rhythmyx empowers both business users and technical users with industry-leading functionality, including:

-- Active Assembly(TM), which allows business-level producers to group and arrange content into web pages and documents, without requiring developers to create new templates;

-- A configurable, engine-based architecture that facilitates the production and aggregation of content while minimizing the need for custom coding, providing enterprises with a "future-proof" content management foundation; and,

-- A web services layer that not only enables content authors to use their existing content creation tools, but also provides tight integration with external delivery systems such as portals, application servers and asset management systems.

About IDG's InfoWorld Media Group

Only InfoWorld Media Group provides cutting-edge coverage and evaluations of IT products, technology and services for technology experts in senior IT management. InfoWorld reaches the most influential senior technology experts - who drive their enterprises' technology purchases - through integrated online, print, research and events channels. InfoWorld also provides specialized IT coverage for the Chief Technologist, the senior-most company executives who possess deep technology expertise and experience.