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, personalised 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 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, letters of offer, insurance claims, as well as all correspondence from departments, such as HR.

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. It will strengthen Thunderhead's position as the leading solution provider for this 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 and actions the required XForm based on the target data properties 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 Thunderhead CEO Glen Manchester.

He added: "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."

Manchester emphasised that Interview NOW was designed to augment third-party electronic forms products. Interview NOW 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 is another great example of how our commitment to open standards gives us an innovation edge. We built our NOW platform around the XML stack, and the use of key standards, such as XSLT, XSL:FO and XForms, has enabled us to build a powerful solution that has changed the focus of our market away from static print to dynamic multi-channel communications" Manchester concluded.