The Case for Collaboration

The latest post on ComputerWeekly.com makes the case that effective collaboration could have saved us from the mess that banking systems are at now. Financial institutions make an effort to analyze risk, and so why not use collaborative technology to aid in this process.

Integration of collaborative portals would given the right people access to the right knowledge, thus improving decision making within all parts of the enterprise. Ian White mentions that people should not ask when and what collaborative technology should be used for, but how can the features of the applications be used to improve the organization.

CMS Watch Presents Enterprise Portal Marketplace Going Into 2009

CMS Watch in conjunction with the IT & Business Alignment Forum presents a complimentary one hour web seminar presented by Tony Byrne. The webinar Enterprise Portal Marketplace Going Into 2009 will be presented by Tony Byrne of CMS Watch on Thursday September 25^th from 2:00 to 3:00 PM EDT. Don’t miss your chance to view this webinar free of charge, as Tony’s last webinar “Evaluating SharePoint from a Business Perspective” generated a huge response. Here’s a brief description of the webinar:

Enterprise Portal technology underpins many enterprise integration and SOA strategies. However, going into 2009 the portal marketplace is in some flux, as older technologies and platforms become deprecated while new use cases around social computing emerge. Meanwhile, the rise of Microsoft SharePoint has led to divergent reactions among traditional enterprise portal suppliers – like IBM, Oracle, and SAP – while open source portal projects continue to expand vigorously.

Please join noted analyst firm CMS Watch to learn more about where the enterprise portal marketplace is headed so you can carefully plan your 2009 investments in this critical area.

What you will learn by attending:

· How the enterprise portal marketplace is segmented today

· Shifting vendor strategies in the face of SharePoint

· What open source portal platforms bring to the table

· How Portals relate to Enterprise 2.0

· Common enterprise portal use cases

· How to go about selecting the right portal technology

Don’t miss your chance register for the webinar by clicking on this register button below:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/875154842

Microsoft Applications Vs. Google Apps in the Enterprise

A while back, we received a lot of buzz on this post “Microsoft Keeps on Innovating” on our front end of innovation blog. Today I came across this podcast on eWeek in which George Langan, eXpresso CEO, explains why delivering Microsoft productivity applications as a service makes a whole lot more sense in the enterprise when compared to Google applications. The podcast is 15 minutes long. What’s your take on the on-going battle in the enterprise between Microsoft and Google?

Google Chrome: Enterprise Browser?

There’s been a buzz recently about Google Chrome, the web-browser Google is launching. Larry Dignan poses the question ‘should businesses pay attention to this move’ in this latest post on ZDNet.

It is still unsure how Google Chrome will fit in the enterprise since it is in its early beta stages. Companies will have to keep a close watch in this web browser though, as with all other Google Apps it winds up sneaking into your enterprise somehow. We all readily await the features and perks that Google’s new browser will bring to the table. I’ll be keeping a close watch on its arrival, analyzing whether the browser makes business sense.

Portal 2.0 and Beyond

Over the last few years, we’ve seen the evolution of portals within the enterprise to become more personalized to specific information needs of users, but what does the future hold in store for the portal universe? I came across this post on builder au in which Lana Kovacevic notes a couple of points from Gene Phifer in a recent conversation about the direction that portals are heading into.

Here are several characteristics Gene lists that the “portal of the future” will have:

1. Portals like iGoogle and MyYahoo already aggregate content, but portals of the future will facilitate content aggregation making it even more personalized.
2. Portals fabrics will evolve to the idea of the “follow me portal”, in which the look and feel of the portal will transform based on your location. This especially will be increasingly popular as the enterprise is experiencing a surge in mobile browsing on smartphones.
3. Social Web 2.0 functionalities are here to stay. Portals will continue to make use of technologies such as social networks, wikis, forums, and blogs.
4. Portals will fully integrate with all social networks. Plaxo is a good example of an integrated portal that aggregates updates from sites like Flickr, Twitter, and Digg. The “portal of the future” will be able to aggregate updates from these social applications as well as other networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Xing.
5. Collaboration is key in the enterprise; portals will play a part in improving the overall user experience.
6. The ability to aggregate mashed up content from more than one individual websites will be facilitated by future enterprise portals.

So you’ve seen Gene’s description of future portals, but what components and functionalities will your ideal “portal of the future” have?

Is Sharepoint the end of portal innovation?

Today, at Intelligent Enterprise, Shawn Shell wrote an article pondering the future of portals. As he currently sees it, SharePoint seems to have stopped all conversation when it comes to evolving portals.

SharePoint is taking the E2.0 world by storm, and the software does have 1 million seat licenses, as well as $1 billion in sales. The software is also used by business giants Accenture, Ford, and DelMonte. Although SharePoint still has its weaknesses (record management, digital assessment, and search requires add-ons to be worthy of use). This has all caused a slow down in the expansion of other portals being developed by other enterprises.

Shawn Shell believes that this is just a pause in development of portal history, and they history is not over. What do you think?

Building Effective Portals: Realize Business Benefits

We’ve recently hosted a web seminar entitled “Building Effective Portals: Realize Business Benefits”, and what a success it was! I’d like to thank all the attendees and would like to invite anyone who has not seen this insightful FREE web seminar to view it here.

The web seminar was presented by Tushar K. Hazra, Ph.D., who is the CTO for EpitomiOne Inc, a Maryland based strategic consulting company specializing in EA, SOA, portals, web services and model driven solution delivery. Tushar is responsible for facilitating strategic technical solution delivery of EpitomiOne clients.

Here’s a list of items you will learn by viewing this archived recording:

• Capitalize on seven (7) business drivers to make a convincible case for portals
• Recognize seven (7) key business advantages of building portals
• Define seven (7) essential steps to create a roadmap for building portals
• Utilize seven (7) best practices to achieve major business benefits of portals

Tushar will also be speaking at the Enterprise3 Event, which takes place on May 19th through the 22st in San Diego. This event takes a broader look at the use of portals within the enterprise, coming from a wide array of expertise from different speakers. So feel free to pass this on to other colleagues that will benefit from this information. Enjoy the FREE web seminar and I hope to see you all in San Diego in May!

Portals in a Enterprise 2.0 world

Today, I came across a post at Internet Marketing Updates that gave a description of the different types of portals that are in use across the web.

The horizontal portal is the one most of us are very familiar with. It’s a portal that gives us access to the rest of the web. Examples would be Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Most of the time they provide a community, and provide us access to information that would normally take thousands of pages to sort through. These portals make their money from advertising and transaction fees.

A vertical portal provides deep content to the user. It’s a place to connect with others and learn about specific topics in depth. Examples would be WebMD and Web Flyer. These portals make their money through advertising, referral fees, and subscriptions to their content.

An affinity portal is a place where the content is community base driven. It’s a lot like the vertical portal but made for a specific segment. It’s content and community driven. It’s profit comes from the same things as the vertical portal.

So what type of portal do you find your enterprise using the most often? Do you believe there is one that is more commonly used in the enterprise setting?