Tie it together and open it up with Enterprise Information Portals

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The idea of a portal is hardly new — at least in Internet terms. It's a tool or service that brings information together and opens it up to a wide audience. Add some personalization and you've got something not much different than Yahoo! — one of the most popular portals on the planet.

But the term "Enterprise Information Portal" (EIP) causes confusion. This is most likely due to industry hype - the attempt by various industry players to define EIP according to their own product offerings.

For the purpose of this discussion, we will define EIP simply and broadly to mean a secure, Web-based interface that provides a single point of integration for and access to information, applications and services for all people involved in the enterprise — including employees, partners, suppliers and customers.

While some industry theorists differ in their conception of what an EIP should include (business intelligence, collaborative functionality, decision processing, content management, etc.), the argument is primarily academic. The above definition is flexible enough to include most EIP products on the market today while insisting on some basic features necessary to distinguish EIPs from other software solutions (Web-based interface, single-point of integration, common access).

Nevertheless, conflicting understandings of what constitutes an EIP exist. This stems in part from the fact that so many different kinds of vendors with different backgrounds come at EIP from different directions.

Some companies have entered the EIP marketplace with backgrounds in Data Warehousing and Analytical Applications (Brio, Business Objects, Hummingbird, etc.). This is a logical migration. Such industry sectors as Data Mining and OLAP lead to Business Intelligence — which for many is a leading benefit of any EIP solution.

Other companies have entered the EIP market from an application server/e-business platform background (Broadvision, IBM, Iona, etc.). This is also a natural migration path. As application servers increasingly become commodified, players in this market space have attempted to increase functionality by placing disparate products and solutions on top of the app server — marketing the package as one overreaching offering. The next logical step is to integrate it all with an EIP.

Not to be out-maneuvered, many of high-tech's big players have added EIP solutions, coming at the market from a more generalized business software background (SAP, Computer Associates, Sybase, etc.). These companies have long maintained significant footholds in the markets for ERP, supply chain, Sales Force Automation, CRM, etc.

Still other companies have entered the market with little history at all, providing EIP solutions as their primary focus (Plumtree, Viador, Data Channel, etc.). Such bottom-up portal providers are often unencumbered by legacy integration issues and may offer the best pure EIP solutions of all.

Finally — to confuse matters further — there exists another subset of prominent companies who, while not explicitly offering EIP products, provide comprehensive e-business solutions that address many of the issues that Enterprise Information Portals claim to solve (Siebel Systems, ATG, BEA, Allaire, HP/Bluestone, Microsoft, etc.). These companies offer products that can manage content management, personalization, e-business transactions, etc. Developers building java-based enterprise solutions with BEA WebLogic, for example, have the tools to develop a Web-based interface that integrates information, applications and services — in other words they have the tools to build an EIP solution.

Different vendors from different industry sectors have entered the EIP marketplace.

Naturally, any given EIP solution will emphasize the core competencies of the company producing it. We can expect Brio's Brio.Portal to stress the advantages of disseminating business intelligence throughout the enterprise. Likewise, we can expect a company like Broadvision — with a background in e-business — to stress EIP as the ultimate in business Webification.

All EIPs, then, are not created equal. What constitutes quality should be the degree to which a particular EIP succeeds at bringing together all the e-functionality of a given enterprise.

Ignoring vertical industry-specific needs, a quality Enterprise Information Portal should include the following features:

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TechMetrix Research is a technically focused analyst firm focused on e-business application development needs. Based in Boston, Mass., the firm publishes comparison reports and product reviews designed to aid enterprises with decision making and to keep pace with the fast-moving e-business market.

TechMetrix is a U.S.-based subsidiary of SQLI, a European company that offers on-site development services to international organizations. SQLI specializes in e-business project development.