Thunderhead Strengthens Lead in Interactive, Real-Time Communications

Enterprise communications company extends it standards-based solution with XForms-enabled document interaction

Thunderhead, the leading provider of enterprise communications solutions, has announced the release of Interview NOW, a new addition to its Thunderhead NOW communications platform.

The NOW platform, based on Thunderhead’s one-platform-for-all-communications paradigm, provides a complete enterprise solution for the creation and delivery of real-time and high-volume, multi-channel, personalized business communications.

With Interview NOW, data required for completion of customer communications is collected using an interview-style process that requests only the data relevant to the completion of the task. Interview NOW is easily integrated into business processes, and the NOW platform comes with out-of-the-box integration with leading BPM products. Interview NOW meets the requirements for all types of business documents including contracts, trade confirmations and term sheets, offer letters, insurance claims and employee communications, such as those from human resources.

Interview NOW joins existing modules Review NOW for exception-based review case editing, and Correspond NOW for ad hoc correspondence, to form a complete Web-based enterprise solution for managing real-time, interactive documents. Thunderhead NOW will strengthen Thunderhead’s position as the leading solution provider for the enterprise communications market.

In keeping with Thunderhead’s XML heritage, Interview Now is based on XForms, an XML-based standard for the specification of user interfaces and processing of XML data. When specific data is required for a document, the NOW platform dynamically creates the required XForm, based on the target data and business logic contained in the document template.

“We are excited about the addition of this unique functionality, and another example of the innovation through which Thunderhead has redefined the enterprise communications market,” said Glen Manchester, CEO of Thunderhead. “I am very pleased that we have been able to deliver this functionality in a way that enables business users to take control of designing the interview process with our intuitive design environment.”

Interview NOW was designed to augment third-party electronic forms products. The solution can optionally hand the XForms it creates to e-Forms products, such as Lotus Forms from Thunderhead partner IBM.

Thunderhead pioneered the use of open standards in the enterprise communications market, and Interview NOW demonstrates the company’s commitment to open standards. Thunderhead built its NOW platform around the XML stack and the use of key standards, including XSLT, XSL-FO and XForms. This powerful solution has changed the focus of the enterprise communications market from static print to dynamic, multi-channel communications.