Sitecore® Launches Sitecore® Experience Platform™ 8.2 to Accelerate Strategic Marketing Initiatives and Time to Market

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Sep 15, 2016, 08:30 ET

SAUSALITO, Calif., Sept. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Sitecore, the global leader in experience management software, today announced the full availability of Sitecore® Experience Platform™ (XP) 8.2 and the Sitecore Commerce 8.2 family of the next iteration of its flagship products. Sitecore XP 8.2 builds on the core functionality and usability of the newly designed Experience Platform 8 and introduces key tools to help its growing customer base quickly take advantage of crucial digital marketing capabilities.

By now, most marketers understand the difference a unique and positive customer experience can have on their ability to attract new customers as well as retain and grow existing ones, yet execution remains elusive. "Sitecore XP 8.2 will introduce both Sitecore Experience Accelerator for new clients and Express Migrations—a streamlined toolset for our existing customers and partners," said Lars Floe Nielsen, co-founder and Chief Development Officer, Sitecore. "This product paves the way for an accelerated time to market combined with increased adoption of the platform's capabilities, while continuing to support the agility and scale our partners will need as they grow."

Key benefits of Sitecore XP 8.2 include:

Reduced Time to Market: Built based on Sitecore best practices, 8.2 introduces a new product, Sitecore Experience Accelerator (XA). XA allows marketers to rapidly create new web and mobile web experiences using a drag-and-drop wireframe toolset with more than 80 pre-built components. Web designers without explicit Sitecore expertise can now easily create Themes to apply styling across a project. Combined together, the effort to build new Sitecore-based experiences is significantly reduced, enabling customers to deploy agile marketing techniques to iterate more quickly and mature their digital marketing programs at an accelerated pace.
Express Migrations: 8.2 brings the beginning of migration tools to existing customers at no charge to help reduce time and workloads associated with transferring data from older Sitecore versions 7.2 to 8.2. Additional versions will be supported over time, making it easier to take advantage of Sitecore's product roadmap.
Advanced Publishing: Debuting in 8.2 is a next-generation publishing service based on Microsoft .NET core technologies. The new service augments existing capabilities and can publish items faster. It includes a highly parallelized distribution engine that allows customers to take advantage of massive, geographically distributed cloud deployments and is capable of satisfying the most complex and demanding customer requirements.
Commerce Enhancements: The Sitecore Commerce 8.2 product family adds numerous new capabilities including further simplifications to the deployment model while adding additional e-commerce reporting capabilities. These enhancements make it easier for merchandisers to bridge the in-store and online experiences.
Data-at-Rest Encryption: Support for MongoDB 3.2 databases includes native at-rest database encryption for xDB through the use of WiredTiger storage, making it possible to further secure and protect customer data stored in the Sitecore® Experience Database™.
Improved Usability: Numerous improvements have been made across the platform including advanced filtering and funnel analysis in Path analyzer, data source management and content item organization in Experience Editor and segmentation that is more accessible and easier to understand. These enhancements put more power in the hands of marketers and merchandisers to truly assess how customers are interacting with the brand, gather insights on how best to optimize those experiences and simplify their ability to take action against those insights.
Data Exchange Framework: Also debuting with Sitecore 8.2 is the new Data Exchange Framework, which allows Sitecore to take further advantage of external sources of content, helps integrate Sitecore into the rest of a customer's marketing technology investments, and enables Sitecore to take advantage of external sources of context to enrich a customer's implementation.

Sitecore XP 8.2 and the Sitecore Commerce 8.2 product family lay the technical foundation for the recently announced expansion of Sitecore's alliance with Microsoft Corporation. Immediately available is native support for SQL Azure databases. A forthcoming update to 8.2 will add native provisioning via Azure Resource Manager, hosting on the Azure App Service, and a fully PaaS-optimized experience leveraging Azure Search and Azure Application Insights.

Availability
Sitecore XP 8.2 and the Sitecore Commerce 8.2 product family are now available to new and existing customers of the Sitecore Experience Platform.

About Sitecore
Sitecore is the global leader in experience management software. The Sitecore® Experience Platform™ manages content, supplies contextual intelligence, and automates communications, at scale. It empowers marketers to deliver content in context of how customers have engaged with their brand, across every channel, in real time. This context marketing is the only way to manage meaningful customer experiences that delight audiences, build loyalty, and drive revenue. More than 4,400 of the world's leading brands—including American Express, Carnival Cruise Lines, easyJet, and L'Oréal—trust Sitecore to help them deliver the personalized interactions that win loyal customers. For more information, follow @Sitecore or visit www.sitecore.net. #SitecoreSym

Sitecore and Experience Platform are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sitecore Corporation A/S and/or its subsidiaries in the USA and other countries. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Sitecore reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice.

Media Contact:

Ryan Donovan
Sitecore
[email protected]

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SOURCE Sitecore