Introducing portals to content managers

Although the hype around enterprise portals seems to have subsided, I believe genuine interest remains high. Yesterday at the annual AIIM Expo, we held an "Enterprise Portal Smackdown," where a packed room of document and records managers keenly watched 7-minute demos presented by different consultancies (Ironworks, Molecular, and Liferay) demonstrating, respectively: BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, and Liferay Portal. Here's a very brief summary of the demos:

  • Liferay: "We're cool"
  • Molecular/IBM: "Beware...portals are complicated"
  • IronWorks/BEA: "E-business dashboards rock"

 

More enterprises are recognizing use-cases for accessing content repositories and services from other applications. Obviously, portal platforms represent one option here, although panelists discussing "convergence" the day before seemed a bit more sanguine about enterprise search in this regard. On the whole, I think web and enterprise content management specialists underestimate both the power and perils of enterprise portal software.

Other Enterprise Portals posts

How did our 2017 predictions fare?

Like every analyst firm RSG makes annual predictions, but uniquely in the industry, we go back each year to evaluate our own prescience.

There is no such thing as a DXP

I don't know any enterprise customer that wants — or believes it remotely possible — to obtain all those services from a single vendor. No, this is a vendor fantasy, getting peddled by analyst shills.