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We
are all in violent agreement that the Web is overwhelming us with
information. The problem
isn't having information, but having the right information.
More important is access to the right information at just the
right time, in combination with other information, from multiple
sources, that enriches it and provides context. Whether
you are an individual consumer, an individual business professional with
a particular passion, or a global 100 corporation with tens of thousands
of employees, PORTALS are being touted as the best way to organize and
present information to users. Just
what kind of portal you might be offered, what the portal might do, and
how you might choose to use it vary, of course, depending on who you are
and the kind of facilities sellers, partners, publishers, colleagues, or
employers may provide. The
Portal you choose is becoming a critical decision for both you, as a
user, and for the providers of all types of Internet-based plumbing,
services, and content. Good
portals are incredibly sticky spaces.
Given the right one, you may choose to stretch out and use it as
your base of operations for nearly all of your information-related work
for a very long time. That's
great news for the providers of THAT portal and the services and
advertisers that you can access from it.
It's terrible news for all the other Internet hardware, software,
service, content, and advertising purveyors who were counting on luring
you away. That's
why so many vendors are in or coming into the Portal business.
They see it as the Key to the Kingdom of the Net.
At first, portals were mainly about providing individual
consumers with access to as many sites as possible (think Yahoo or AOL).
A portal was mainly about CATEGORIES, high-level listings which
could lead to more vertical sub-categories (From Travel to Travel Sites,
Airlines, Car Rentals, Hotels, Resorts, etc., etc.) and then to
individual sites and offerings. All,
of course, could be tied to carefully selected advertising banners and
other offerings which would catch the browser at just the right
seducible moment (if you like that phrase thank Jared Spool of User
Interface Engineering, http://www.uiereports.com/).
We
have choices. Lots of
choices. Many infrastructure
software vendors offer portals that are designed for general corporate
purposes. Plumtree, with over
250 corporate customers (and over 4 million individual users) is
probably the best known. Personal
portals for each user are created by combining documents from
directories, Lotus Notes content, and web pages with access to
applications connected by Plumtree Gadgets (their web service access
method), permitting users to access SAP/3 data, Oracle databases, and
other corporate information from their portal. Others
try to add special features. For
example, IBM recently incorporated Lotus's K-Station Portal software
into its WebSphere Portal Server. The
combined product will now offer both the collaborative and user
interface components of Lotus' K-Station and the broad, highly scalable
WebSphere offering. IBM
uses a portlet method to provide access to partner applications via the
WebSphere Portal Server and announced 20 application and content
partners who are developing portlets including Inktomi, Alta Vista,
Verity, Autonomy, LexisNexis, NewsEdge, and Atomica.
IBM already had portlet agreements with Hoover's Online and
others. IBM also provides
portlets for its own products such as Lotus Domino, Notes, and iNotes,
as well as important products such as Moreover, LiveLink, POP3/IMAP
email, and Microsoft. Every
Web Services vendor has (or is likely to announce) his own portal
strategy. This includes all
the major players (IBM, HP, Sun, Microsoft, et al) and all the second
and third tier players as well. Dozens
of special purpose Portal players have created portals for communities
of users. It is very likely
that in addition to using your company's corporate portal you will use
at least one of these. They
are geared to specific professional needs and interests.
Such portals range broadly, with something available for nearly
every taste. Try Portera (www.portera.com)
for traveling professionals (accountants, consultants, etc.) or Upstream
Info (http://www.upstreaminfo.com/
for the petroleum industry). The
choices are endless. What
we couldn't find (but not for lack of looking) was a good directory site
for business portals. Most
of the portals for portals send you to consumer portals.
Most users will, of course, want to use some of these, too, but
it would be very helpful to be able to find good listings of all the
sites by professional categories. We're
still looking -- if you know the magic URL, please let us know so we can
pass it along. We
think some comments about the portal phenomenon are in order:
Personally,
we hate Portals that are so cluttered with information we'd never use
that we can't find what we need. This
argues for simple designs and lots of user choice.
Not everyone wants stock quotes, baseball scores, or the news.
And not everyone wants their email to take up 37.5% of the
screen. Choice is good. ========================================== TALKING
LINUX ========================================== Tuesday
night at 5:30, if the arrangements work out, I'll be on a TechTV
broadcast discussing Linux, present and future.
There still seems to be a lot to talk about in the Linux arena.
IBM likes Linux better with every passing day.
IDG has revised its revision of the Linux server market (which
was originally thought to be a serious overstatement) and says no, the
problem is that because of Linux' unique distribution model, it's hard
to count it with traditional methods.
It's still expected to be the most popular server operating
system in a few more years (2004/2005).
Interest in Linux for small objects (cell phones, PDA's,
household devices, etc.) grows and Linux is expected to be the OS of
choice in many developing countries where its low cost (essentially
free) will be an important issue. Since
this includes vast areas of the world such as China, Russia, India, and
Africa, we take this seriously. On
the other hand, we expect the real boost to Linux may come from the
government's propensity to issue poorly thought-through software patents
-- a trend that could seriously stifle innovation but is likely to have
less effect in the Open Source market where a patenting strategy would
run counter to deeply held principles about the nature of software
ownership. As I said, there is plenty to talk about. On TechTV, I'll be lucky to get 5 minutes. Pick a topic and we'll talk about it at length in a future issue of Opinions.
Comments or Questions: Send Email to
opinions@wohl.com
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