With so many vendors in the market, there is considerable confusion over exactly what a good portal solution should provide. Moreover, with so much variance in the positioning and messages among vendors, organizations may have trouble sorting out the differences between portal packages to determine the best solution for their needs.

Portal Uses and Capabilities

We define a portal as a central jumping-off point to content and applications. That's a broad definition, and portals' specific capabilities vary widely. However, the goal of any such product is to centralize access to information that formerly required multiple interfaces. Organizations deploy portal servers to build these centralized interfaces that let users find the content they need through browsers. Benefits include knowledge sharing, reduction in redundancy of work and time savings.

What Do Readers Think? Check out our e-poll results on portal solutions.

There is considerable disparity in the capabilities of different portal servers. For example, some products focus on providing a front end for content aggregation but require the customer to integrate third-party tools for more advanced services. Other products, such as those from Autonomy, focus on autocategorization and personalization. Microsoft's SharePoint Portal Server emphasizes user simplicity, content sharing and document management. Lotus K-station and Plumtree Corporate Portal emphasize collaboration and community-oriented features. Tibco's ActivePortal flexes its muscle in integrating with disparate back-end systems.

Organizations have different motivations for deploying portal servers. Many are interested in using portals as the main interfaces for corporate intranets, to give employees access to the information they need to do their jobs. This can include general company information, such as policies, procedures, benefits and company news. It can also include line-of-business information, such as customer-account material, internal research and development documents, business plans, financial data, and competitive intelligence.

Other companies are looking beyond content aggregation and access capabilities, and seek to implement an infrastructure for collaboration and knowledge sharing. Some organizations want to extend their portal capabilities out to external users, including customers or business partners, through extranet implementations for B2B commerce, customer support and partner program support. So understanding the various capabilities that portal servers can bring to your organization is important. These capabilities range from gathering, organizing and classifying to accessing, presenting and distributing information, as well as tools for collaboration and customization (see "Enterprise Portal Capabilities").

Some organizations are even beginning to consider portals as potential corporatewide desktop replacements, removing the often-complex Windows environment from the list of support headaches. In some situations, for example, employees need only a well-defined and limited set of electronic functions. Remote workers and road warriors, too, may benefit from the portal as a primary interface -- particularly if they're already using wireless services. Given current limitations of the browser interface, however, many workers still require full access to a standard Windows corporate desktop.