Drive Beyond Dashboards

by Doug Henschen

More than one third of global firms with revenues of $1 billion or more have built (or are rebuilding) enterprise portals this year, according to Forrester Research.

Why so much portal activity?

Because state-of-the-art portals not only improve access to information, they cut costs by linking employees to content and, increasingly, vital business processes. Portals are also moving beyond the firewall, keeping supply chains running smoothly and giving partners and consumers the tools they need to serve themselves.

Unlike the corporate portals of a few years ago, today's most advanced portals are much more than dashboards for viewing internal company information. So-called process portals are linked to enterprise applications and content based on user roles and access privileges.

To support a broader role, portal software is merging with application servers and integration middleware, says Gartner Dataquest. And the research firm says the market for these combined application platform suites will grow from $6 billion this year to more than $10 billion by 2006.

In short, portal adoption is booming, fueled in part by rapidly falling prices. Yet the process of choosing and deploying portals is far from easy. Buyers face a bewildering array of vendor offerings and strategic decisions. If you'd like a bit of free advice on how to navigate your way through the confusion, join us for "Next-Stage Portals: Integrating Content and Applications," a video Web seminar, set for October 31 at 2:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time (11:00 A.M. Pacific Standard Time).

Joining us for this upcoming Web seminar will be two experts set to give you invaluable advice. Dave Homan, an analyst with Chicago-based Doculabs, will discuss the major types of portal platforms and their respective strengths and weaknesses.

Once you pick the right technologies, the next step is integration and deployment. Our second presenter, Alan Pelz-Sharpe, a vice president at international consulting practice Ovum, will explore just how organizations are tying their portals to enterprisewide content and mission-critical applications. This is the extra mile that makes the difference between a simple dashboard and a true process portal.

If you're looking for more specific advice, you'll be able to submit questions through a real-time chat forum during our question and answer session. This interactive session will allow you to go one-on-one with our Web seminar guests.

For anyone expecting to deploy or update their technology, this 45-minute seminar will give you a head start in building a next-stage portal. Best of all, it's free content. All you need do is preregister by clicking on the "Next-Stage Portals" logo at www.transformmag.com. The presentations will be taped and downloadable from our site after the Webcast, but join us on October 31 so you can ask the experts and hear about challenges your peers are facing in real-world portal deployments.

Doug Henschen, Editor-in-Chief

Send questions or comments to dhenschen@cmp.com