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Inside the Brackets:

[PERCUSSION® RHYTHMYX™]

by Jeff Wood     Jan 2003

In each issue, this section focuses on a different content management-related product, providing an overview of information specifically targeted to publishers.

Percussion's Rhythmyx Content Manager is a web content management system and is now in version 4.5. Percussions emphasizes its low total cost of ownership.

Content creators can enter content from any authoring application or directly into the Rhythmyx system via predefined web templates. The content is converted to standardized XML and is stored in the system repository, along with all associated metadata and workflow-related storage. The "Active Assembly"™ engine enables web page content to be formatted and arranged on the page through a powerful WYSIWYG application, giving further control to a non-technical editorial staff. For content creators more comfortable authoring in a traditional Microsoft Word environment, the Rhythmyx Accelerator for Microsoft Word® provides a means to enter metadata and save documents into the Rhythmyx enviroment directly from a drop-down menu in Word.

The Dynamic Workflow™ component enables the creation of several different flexible paths for content to follow, complete with email notifications, alerts, and escalation procedures. The creation and modification of workflows through a graphical interface again require no coding skills whatsoever.

Behind the scenes, the Rhythmyx CMS relies on open standards, providing a virtual XML layer and relational storage. It includes the ability to integrate content from other applications, as well as share its own content through its integrated publishing services. The engine-based architecture allows for easy setup and configuration of each of the end-user components.

Product Highlights

Product: Rhythmyx Content Manager
Vendor: Percussion (www.percussion.com)
Categories: Web CMS, Workflow
Select Clients: Network World, Scholastic, Weider Publications
Cost: Around $150,000
Recent Activity:

Oct 02: Announces record sales in Q3 2002
June 02: Releases version 4.5