BBC News Interactive Deploys Perforce To Manage and Develop Its Content Management System

Yateley, UK, 4th December, 2003 - Perforce Software today announced that its Software Configuration Management (SCM) tool has been selected by BBC News Interactive, the 24-hour online and interactive television news service from the BBC, to manage and develop its content management system. BBC News Interactive will also use Perforce to manage and develop all the other applications (from the automated feeds through to the html templates) that produce news for interactive platforms including BBC News Online, Ceefax, and Digital Text. As well as this, Perforce will be used by BBC News Interactive to manage and develop the BBC World Service foreign language news sites including BBC Russian.com, BBC Mundo.com, BBC Arabic.com, and BBC Chinese.com. BBC News Interactive has over 50 developers working on both Macintosh and Windows clients supporting its English language and foreign language platforms.

Kevin Hinde, Head of Technical Development, BBC News Interactive said, "Perforce has enabled us to develop and deliver features faster then we have ever been able to do before. We have many developers working on multiple projects and this often results in concurrent development of the same body of code. For example, if you are working on the back end of the content management system, you don't want developers who are adding features to the Chinese templates to be affected. Perforce's branching model enables us to handle these complex relationships in a productive and seamless way.”

Dave Robertson, Director of European Operations, Perforce, said, "We are pleased that Perforce is enabling real-world gains for BBC News Interactive's developers in managing the content delivery on platforms including Ceefax and the world's most visited online news site, BBC News Online."

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About BBC News Interactive
Since it was first formed as a company in 1922, five years before it received its first Royal Charter and became the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC has been a world leader in programme production. It has pioneered communications in radio, television and online technologies. BBC News Interactive is responsible for the BBC News website, one of the most popular Internet news resources in the world. It launched a 24x7 interactive television news service on digital satellite in November 2001, and regularly provides iTV enhancements for a number of its programmes on all digital platforms including satellite, cable, digital terrestrial and broadband-to-TV. These pages reveal some of the BBC's rich heritage – the great programmes of the past, the big themes of the present and the innovating spirit in which we enter the future. The BBC's landmarks are part of the tapestry of our lives.

About the Perforce SCM System
The Perforce SCM system is a comprehensive software configuration management system that streamlines the software development process for organisations working with multiple operating systems and in multiple physical locations. This high-powered SCM system, which runs on more than 50 operating systems, provides software developers an easy-to-use tool for version control and workspace management, with atomic change transactions. Perforce maximises efficiency by managing work on local disks and providing for online backups.

About Perforce Software
Perforce Software Inc. develops, markets, and supports Perforce®, the Fast Software Configuration Management System. Headquartered in Alameda, Calif., Perforce Software sells worldwide and has international operations in Europe, Japan, and Africa. Perforce customers include developers of systems, application, Web, and database software, and firms in the financial, education, and research markets. For additional information, contact Perforce Software via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or phone on +44 (0) 1252 861400 or via the Web at http://www.perforce.com.

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