According to a recent study by research firm IDC, IBM is leading the Enterprise Portal market in license and maintenance revenue for the 5th consecutive year. Even CNN picked up the news, which illustrates how the media is enthralled with marketshare numbers.

We take a somewhat more prosaic view. Our research also shows that organizations are continuing to buy IBM WebSphere Portal, even with the enormous growth of MOSS 2007, but unlike other analysts, we do not crown IBM as a leader. Marketshare numbers are easily misleading in the very young marketplace, so instead we advise technology buyers to use scenarios as the most meaningful approach to finding the right portal. As readers of the Enterprise Portals Report know, WebSphere Portal licensees frequently require multiple IBM products and ample professional services to achieve a complete solution. Licensees also report that they need substantial hardware investments and intensive caching configuration in their projects. In short: Buying from a "leader" can easily become a very expensive exercise, in particular for areas where the product is not a good fit.