Boston, MA, USA -- Current demands to reduce headcount and push more information to distributors and customers are driving the resurgence in enterprise portal technology, according to CMS Watch, a vendor-independent analyst firm. CMS Watch's newest portals research finds considerable attention going to self-service portals in government, retail, and healthcare, which carry complex integration requirements.

Today CMS Watch released its latest Enterprise Portals research, which evaluates 12 enterprise portal vendors and products head-to-head.

"As more services move online, enterprises are searching for frameworks to manage complex, user-centric application environments," notes Jarrod Gingras, CMS Watch Analyst.

During the dot-com era, enterprise portals positioned themselves as "one-stop-solutions," providing everything from content management, to personalization, to business intelligence.

"Today's enterprise technology buyers have invested in best of breed functionality for content management, personalization and business intelligence, and tend to look for portal technology without the frills," notes Alan Pelz-Sharpe, CMS Watch Principal Analyst.

The latest research also found:

• Oracle will have 5 portal offerings in addition to its home grown WebCenter Suite portal. Oracle has acquired two portals from BEA, and is in the process of acquiring two more from Sun.
• IBM will have a major upgrade (Version 7) in late 2009. Buyers will need to remain cautious, as with any major upgrade.
• Open source solutions will remain comparatively strong options for buyers due to their long focus on creating core development frameworks, but some of them lack advanced enterprise integration services.

Enterprise technology buyers need to look carefully at the existing enterprise portal offerings and ensure they are not buying unnecessary, unsuitable, or redundant technology. The 2009 enterprise software market can be characterized as a buying community interested in rediscovering the roots and strengths of enterprise portals. It is also a vendor community that seems unsure of how to react to this renewed interest.

The Enterprise Portals Report 2009 can be purchased online from CMS Watch (http://www.realstorygroup.com). A free report 20-page excerpt is available: /Try/.