Portal technology has become a mature
technology, with an exceptional level of take up by blue chip companies, according to Butler Group.
30 May 2001, 2 pm GMT
According to a survey by analysts at Butler of a targeted group of companies 70% of the respondents have or are planning to implement a corporate portal within 12 months.
The number of actual users on-line in operational or pilot projects varies from 10 to 22,000 per company, with a target of up to 90,000.
The primary benefits expected from corporate portals are integration with enterprise applications and effective distribution of information.
Collaborative working is also seen a priority, along with managing content and information.
Knowledge management, marketing and e-commerce were considered the functions that are most likely to use corporate portals.
The more traditional users of intelligence such as human resources, finance, sales and R&D were perceived as less likely to use this facility, whilst purchasing, operation and production were generally not seen as areas that would be included within the portal.
The features of corporate portals that were thought most important include: security, information search facility, a single point of access to information and single sign-on to applications.
Surprisingly, facilities such as the support for business processes and workflow, document directory or personalised pages rated lower than other facilities.
In choosing a product, the companies would consider first performance, integration with applications and scalability. This is followed by
development facilities, features and support for standards. Interestingly, cost is the last consideration: "Does the solution do the job?" or "Does it fit our corporate strategy?" appear to be more important than cost.
Among the preferred suppliers Plumtree, Microsoft and Computer Associates, as well as Appsolut Software, Autonomy, CoreChange, SAP Business Objects, TopTier and Cognos

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