Thunderhead (software)
Encyclopedia
Thunderhead is an enterprise software company based in Elstree
, Hertfordshire
, UK
. Thunderhead is a leading provider of customer communications software for B2C and B2B
applications, and serves customers from a wide range of industry sectors including financial services, health-care, insurance, investment banking, commodity and energy trading, and government. The company has operations in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Thunderhead's core product is the Thunderhead NOW Customer Communications Platform, designed to be a complete enterprise solution for managing high-volume batch, real-time, and interactive communications across any delivery channel. The NOW platform produces communications that are highly personalized and tailored to the individual preferences of the recipient, and which can be integrated with customer-facing business processes.
Organizations use this technology to automate the creation and assembly of high-volume communications delivered across multiple channels, including XML Messaging
, Print
, E-mail
, Web
, or SMS
& MMS
for mobile devices.
The NOW modules include: an Interactive Design Studio for document engineering, template creation and data management; a rules-based Composition Engine that provides content-based assembly; and applications for Collaboration (authoring and approval) and Business Process functions (forms and data collection, correspondence and review case editing). The NOW platform features a Component Content Management System
.
The Thunderhead NOW technology is based on open standards, is built from the ground up on XML
and designed to fully leverage the XML stack, including XSLT
and XSL-FO.
, Oracle
and TIBCO. For specialist integration services Thunderhead partners with IBM-GBS
and HCL Technologies
.
, and the company is strongly supportive of XML
initiatives. Thunderhead is a member of the W3C and is an active participant in the further development of XSL-FO.
Thunderhead is also involved with a number of organizations, all of which are concerned with the development of XML-based messaging standards for specific industry sectors, including:
Thunderhead is also an Advisory Trade Member of AIIM, the Association for Information and Image Management.
Elstree
Elstree is a village in the Hertsmere borough of Hertfordshire on the A5 road, about 10 miles north of London. In 2001, its population was 4,765, and forms part of the civil parish of Elstree and Borehamwood, originally known simply as Elstree....
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Thunderhead is a leading provider of customer communications software for B2C and B2B
Business-to-business
Business-to-business describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer...
applications, and serves customers from a wide range of industry sectors including financial services, health-care, insurance, investment banking, commodity and energy trading, and government. The company has operations in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Thunderhead's core product is the Thunderhead NOW Customer Communications Platform, designed to be a complete enterprise solution for managing high-volume batch, real-time, and interactive communications across any delivery channel. The NOW platform produces communications that are highly personalized and tailored to the individual preferences of the recipient, and which can be integrated with customer-facing business processes.
Organizations use this technology to automate the creation and assembly of high-volume communications delivered across multiple channels, including XML Messaging
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
, or SMS
Short message service
Short Message Service is a text messaging service component of phone, web, or mobile communication systems, using standardized communications protocols that allow the exchange of short text messages between fixed line or mobile phone devices...
& MMS
Multimedia Messaging Service
Multimedia Messaging Service, or MMS, is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from mobile phones. It extends the core SMS capability that allowed exchange of text messages only up to 160 characters in length.The most popular use is to send photographs from...
for mobile devices.
- Typical B2C applications include customer correspondence, insurance documents, loan and credit documentation, financial statements, and multi-channel, context-aware marketing communications.
- Typical B2BBusiness-to-businessBusiness-to-business describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer...
applications include schema-specific XML messaging (e.g. FpMLFpMLFpML is an XML message standard for the OTC Derivatives industry.All categories of privately negotiated derivatives will eventually be included within the standard...
or ACORDACORDACORD, the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development, is the insurance industry's nonprofit standards developer, a resource for information about object technology, EDI, XML and electronic commerce in the United States and abroad....
); DTCC MarkitSERV Messaging; Termsheet Generation; Trade Confirmations; Master Agreements; reinsurance; and commercial lending and secondary loans documentation.
The NOW modules include: an Interactive Design Studio for document engineering, template creation and data management; a rules-based Composition Engine that provides content-based assembly; and applications for Collaboration (authoring and approval) and Business Process functions (forms and data collection, correspondence and review case editing). The NOW platform features a Component Content Management System
Component Content Management System
A component content management system is a content management system that manages content at a granular level rather than at the document level. Each component represents a single topic, concept or asset . Components can be as large as a chapter or as small as a definition or even a word...
.
The Thunderhead NOW technology is based on open standards, is built from the ground up on XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
and designed to fully leverage the XML stack, including XSLT
XSLT
XSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,...
and XSL-FO.
History
Thunderhead is a privately held company and was founded by CEO ABC in 2001. Previously, Glen was founder of Geneva Digital, a UK based specialist in customer communications. Geneva Digital was subsequently acquired by Xenos Corporation, a Canada-based public company. Glen served as CEO of Xenos before returning to the United Kingdom to establish Thunderhead. Thunderhead underwent a two-year R&D period before launching its commercial product in 2003.- Thunderhead was as a finalist in the UK Technology Awards for 2006 in the category of Enterprise Software Product of the Year.
- Thunderhead was listed in the Sunday Times 2007 Tech Track 100 league table of the fastest growing UK technology companies, and was subsequently awarded the Best Use Of Technology award at the Tech Track 100 awards dinner.
- Thunderhead is listed in Software Magazine's Software 500 in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and in 2008 was in the top 10 fastest growing software companies.
- November 2008, Thunderhead won the award of fastest growing technology company in the 2008 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA.
- December 2008, Glen Manchester, founder and CEO of Thunderhead was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year prize at the Real Business Growing Business Awards.
- June 2009 - Independent Research rates Thunderhead as Leader in Interactive and Top Scoring Vendor for Overall Strategy for Document Output for Customer Communications Management.
Partnerships
Thunderhead has technology partnerships with IBMIBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, Oracle
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
and TIBCO. For specialist integration services Thunderhead partners with IBM-GBS
IBM Global Services
IBM Global Services is the world's largest business and technology services provider. It has over 190,000 workers across more than 160 countries...
and HCL Technologies
HCL Technologies
HCL Technologies Limited is a leading global IT services company headquartered in Noida, India. It is primarily engaged in providing a range of software services, business process outsourcing and infrastructure services. HCL Technologies is fourth largest IT company in India and is ranked 48 in...
.
- In February 2009 Thunderhead was awarded IBM Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Partner of the Year.
- In May 2010 Thunderhead was the recipient of an IBM 2010 Beacon Award awarded for outstanding innovation in Information Management.
Industry Alliances
Thunderhead's technologies are based on XMLXML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
, and the company is strongly supportive of XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
initiatives. Thunderhead is a member of the W3C and is an active participant in the further development of XSL-FO.
Thunderhead is also involved with a number of organizations, all of which are concerned with the development of XML-based messaging standards for specific industry sectors, including:
- ACORDACORDACORD, the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development, is the insurance industry's nonprofit standards developer, a resource for information about object technology, EDI, XML and electronic commerce in the United States and abroad....
Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development - DTCC Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation
- ISDA (International Swaps & Derivatives Association)
- LIXI (Lending Industry XML Initiative)
- MISMO (Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization)
- Origo Standards
- SWIFT
Thunderhead is also an Advisory Trade Member of AIIM, the Association for Information and Image Management.
See also
- Customer Communications ManagementCustomer communications managementCustomer Communications Management is a term highlighted by research companies such as Gartner Group, Forrester Research and Madison Advisors to define a convergent set of Information Technology solutions that together provide marketing communication professionals the ability to advance the way...
- Document AutomationDocument automationDocument automation is the design of systems and workflow that assist in the creation of electronic documents. These include logic based systems that use segments of pre-existing text and/or data to assemble a new document. This process is increasingly used within certain industries to assemble...