best practices in enterprise po - provider's...

Special Supplement to July/August 2001

Andy Moore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Enterprise Information Portals: The Power and the PerilI read an article the other day on the subject of enterprise portals. The otherwiseinformative and interesting piece featured a graphic of a bottle labeled "Portal—The All-In-One Solution”...

Mark Wesker, Sequoia Software . . . . . 4 Using a Portal to Solve Business ProblemsWith less available capital, it has become imperative to make the right decisions whenit comes to selecting and implementing business technologies...

Nimish Mehta, PurpleYogi . . . . . . . . 6 Solving Information OverloadBusinesspeople spend half their time looking for information. Finding it will not getany easier...

Michael Loria, Lotus Development . . 8 Knowledge Management and CollaborationContemplating the impact of email today is not unlike trying to envision a worldwithout telephones...

Jay Weir, Hummingbird . . . . . . . . . 10 The Burgeoning Market for Enterprise PortalsOver the past two years, since Merrill Lynch coined the term, enterprise informationportals (EIP) have come a long way...

Michael Richtberg, Citrix Systems . . 12 Bringing Applications to the Enterprise PortalThe ability to give workers ready access has become vitally important for businessesstriving to be productive, agile and profitable…

Dr. Thomas Hofmann, RecomMind . . 14 Making Personalized Retrieval a Reality in Knowledge EnterprisesUntil now, tools have been built for the enterprise that focus on managing content. butlittle has been done to understand the needs of the user...

Randall Eckel, InfoImage . . . . . . . . 15 Using Portal Technology to Improve and Streamline BusinessProcesses and Decision-making

Today’s progressive organizations have empowered knowledge workers with front linedecision-making responsibility, yet have not provided the tools. As a result, they areempowered but not fully informed...

Robert Bolds, Computer Associates . . 16 Enterprise Information Portals: Portals in PubertyRemember that awkward time in your life when you suddenly underwent a lot ofunexpected changes that affected just about every aspect of your life...?

Tacit Knowledge Systems . . . . . . . . 18 Power Your Portal with Real BrainsEIPs do a good job of consolidating access to an organization's existing data and publisheddocuments. But, what happens when the answers you're looking for aren't in the portal...

Erick Rivas, Mongoose Technology . . 19 Maximize Enterprise Portal ROIEnterprise Portals are being deployed as an integral part of many businesses, so whyaren't they managed as any other business critical software...?

Michael Rudy, IntraNet Solutions . . 20 Enterprise Content Management: Powering the Enterprise PortalThe Enterprise Portal market has gained momentum as customers realize the advantagesof simplifying Web access to the broad range of applications that their users access daily...

Robert Duffner, BEA Systems . . . . . . 21 Portals Unlock the Knowledge that Drives Business ValueEnterprise portals are the primary aggregation and access points that enable employees,partners, suppliers and customers to more efficiently function and collaborate...

Ennov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Corporate Portals Require Complete KM StrategiesKnowledge management can be defined as content management woven into businessprocesses, with easy and timely access to the right information in a controlled andorganized way...

iManage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Enterprise Portals: Powering Mission-critical ApplicationsThe Internet and World Wide Web have ushered in a business revolution, at the heartof which lies a fundamental shift in the way business is conducted...

Best Practices in Enterprise Portals

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Portals emerged, practically from grass-roots, as information workers learned(quickly, those clever buggers) to cop ideasfrom their home-consumer faves (such asMy Yahoo!) and apply them to their work-place information view, “beginning life asa consumer application before businessbegan to perceive its value,” as The DelphiGroup puts it.

Then, something not completely typicalhappened: business DID begin to perceivethe value hidden in portals. Remember, atthe time the management books and mag-azines were all talking about collabora-tion, frictionless information access,knowledge management, etc., so it’s easyto imagine the reasoning that led toattempts—still ongoing attempts—to createthe business equivalent of MyYahoo! inyour own backyard.

“Creating portals is a good first step inleveraging unstructured information,” saysNimish Mehta, CEO of PurpleYogi. “Theproblem is how do you use it, maintain it,keep it current.” Creating a businessMyYahoo! is a pretty good rough diagramfor a business plan, but it’s a long wayfrom there to complete solution. And whatwe have learned from compiling thisWhite Paper on Enterprise InformationPortals is: we ain’t there yet.

Mission ImpossibleIn business, knowledge is an extreme

sport. Providing the gear for such danger-ous play is not for the timid. The chal-lenge for portal vendors is not so much“what is a portal?” but “what ISN’T aportal?” It’s amusing to read some of the“early literature” (we’re talking 1998here) while it tried to deal with the defini-

tion question. As is traditional, the writersstrained for metaphors from daily life todescribe complex technologies: “A portalis like a door ...”; “A portal is a kind ofgatekeeper”; “A portal is like the dash-board of a ‘64 Chevy Impala.”

If a portal is a door, it’s not a very darngood one. Doors keep things out andrestrict access from both sides. If a portalIS a door, it better be a screen door thatallows the free ventilation of content topass both ways, filtered, maybe, but onlyslightly restricted. The difficult trick, asMehta points out, is to make certain thatthe filter understands the needs of theworker, and adjusts to keep the good stuffcoming in, but avoids creating an “infor-mation landfill.”

Special Supplement to

EnterpriseInformation Portals:The Power and the Peril

I read an article the other day on the sub-ject of enterprise portals. The otherwiseinformative and interesting piece featureda graphic of a bottle labeled “Portal—The All-In-One Solution.” The implica-tion, I suppose, is that portal technolo-gies should be viewed dubiously, as onewould a traveling salesman’s flim-flam ...a sort of snake-oil grift preying on thehayseed rube technology buyer that stakeshis future on the next big buzzword . . .

What a load of crap.There are so many things wrong with that

illustration that it’s practically libelous.I can tell you this: Portals—Enterprise

Information Portals, to be formal—arethe most uniquely democratic technologydevelopment that I’ve ever witnessed. Why?Because portals were never imposed.Nobody ever said: “Today, let them eatportal.” And do you want to know why?Because people want portals. They trulydo. More to the point ... YOUR peoplewant portals.

Granted, there’s a substantial amount ofmarketingship at work, but it’s unfair todrape such a valuable and clever advance-ment with such a thoughtless cloak. There’sgreatness and there’s guile here, and weneed to understand the difference. And that’swhy we are publishing this collection ofpositions and practices.

When it Works, It Works“The purpose of portals is to lever-

age existing applications into a betterview, one that is familiar to people,” re-minds Bob Kruger, VP and Chief Tech-nology Officer of Citrix, a professionalservices goliath that recently acquiredSequoia Software.

July/August 2001S2

By Andy Moore, Editorial Director, KMWorld Specialty Publishing

Andy Moore is an editor byprofession and temperament,having held senior editorialand publishing positions for more than two decades.As a publication editor,Moore most recently was editor-in-chief and co-publisher of KMWorld (formerly ImagingWorld)Magazine. Moore now acts as a contract editorial

consultant and conference designer.As KMWorld's Specialty Publishing Editorial Director, Mooreacts as chair for the current series of "Best Practices White Papers," overseeing editorial content, conducting market research and writing the opening essays for each of the whitepapers in the series.

Andy Moore

Editor

“People want

portals. More

to the point—

YOUR people

want portals.”

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S3

If a portal is a gatekeeper, you can keepit. The last thing a rapid organization needsis a traffic cop.

And as for the Chevy Impala ... I madethat one up. I just had one of those once,and I miss it. (Although, now that I thinkabout it, smarter people than me have triedto strain that dashboard metaphor.)

Speaking of strained metaphors: “It isas if the user is at the doorstep of a greatlibrary with well-indexed catalogs andcolorful signs to help her find anythingshe wants, but what’s the point if she hasno idea what to look for or how to applywhat’s ‘out there’ to the task at hand.That’s where portals fail today—theydump you in front of a flood of resourceswithout helping you figure out what to dowith them!”

—Kumar NochurKumar is a buddy of mine who is not

only a Ph.D., but is also smart. Kumar hasdeveloped KM and decision-support soft-ware to help people get more leveragefrom their corporate portals. And as youread this White Paper, you’ll discover thatmost of the vendors in this space are doingsomething similar, i.e., trying to improveexisting offerings by enhancing the “back-end” or the “front-end” or the “middle-ware”or some damn thing.

And I can’t help thinking ... “Why do Ineed a Ph.D. and another product? Why can’tI just buy a portal that does the job, and let’sget on with it?” I mean, I’ve already ownedup to the knowledge-sharing problem, andI bought the information-overload thingand I think there’s something to this NewEconomy stuff, so how come my problemsjust get worse???

“A portal,” says Bob Wesker, CEO ofSequoia Software, “is supposed to knowwhat you don’t know.”

Whoa. THAT'S the challenge for thevendors and those who deploy enterpriseportals—a portal has to do the impossible,and that's why it's so difficult!

Where Are We Anyway?The Delphi Group is as—totally de-

servedly—respected an analyst group asyou’ll ever find. They have fresh researchthat shows that business portal softwaresales, which reached $407 million in 2000,will continue its high-double-digit-growththrough to 2003 and, I guess, beyond.

But they are also quick to caution thatthe total cost of ownership in enterpriseportals hides a severe iceberg effect, mean-ing there’s a BUNCH of stuff that doesn’tmeet the eye. And you don’t have to beLeonardo DiCaprio to understand whatthat means.

On a recent syndicated business TV show,Sun Microsystems’ CEO Scott McNealyadmitted that “somewhere between zero and

20% of our structured and unstructuredinformation is Web-ready.” Wow. This isSUN we’re talking about, for cryin’ outloud, and they are as darkly prepared asthe rest of us when it comes to presentinginformation to users, partners and the pub-lic. Add to this: context-sensitive informa-tion requirements; revolving workforces;misaligned IT infrastructures; and justplain screw-ups.

“With multiple information and appli-cation sources, cycles get long in an enter-prisewide solution,” warns Sequoia’s BobWesker. This long cycle time has createdwhat Delphi terms an “unanticipated costcenter.” Not what most executives wantto hear when they sign up for a solution.

But it’s ultimately the moving-target natureof the beastly thing that is the problem.PurpleYogi’s CEO Nimish Mehta summarizesthe challenge this way: “As companies grow,they evolve ... things change. Portals must beadaptable to the concept drift that occurs asbusinesses progress.”

“Concept drift.” Great term, but aneven greater problem for informationdelivery systems. It’s bad enough whenmerger or acquisition forces a seismicchange onto a workforce. It’s easy to pre-dict the turmoil that results from that. Butwhat about the subtle micro-quakes atevery desk in your company that quietlyand irreversibly alter the momentum ofyour progress, every minute of every day?Can there be a fixed solution for such aslippery condition?

That’s what the companies representedin this White Paper talk about every day. Asrecently as this spring, the Gartner Grouptracked about 25 companies that have aplay to make in the portal marketplace, andranked them according to their relativestatus among their peers. For the record,Gartner listed exactly none of them as“leaders,” or even “challengers” to take aheads-above-the-crowd position in themarketplace. But the field was filled with

“visionaries”; those who have the abilityto achieve the long view of their goals,and better than half a chance to pull it off.

One of my favorite canned questions toask during the interviews for this paper was:“Are portals for delivery or discovery?”Provocative question, I learned. It’s a matterof philosophy for most, but cuts to the core ofmany portal products out there. What I foundout: We are now at a threshold. Portals arebeyond the first-gen Yahoo knock-offs thatallow a level of personalization that is asrudimentary as Model-Ts were black, but notquite the sensitive and aware helpmates theyare made out to be. Not yet.

The best answer to my “delivery or dis-covery” question was from Bob Kruger ofCitrix , whose answer was basically, Whocares?: “How about both? When you’redealing with information at this level, it’smuch more fundamental than push or pull.Why should it matter? What matters is howyou want to operate. Then it’s up to thesoftware to be adaptable.”

Software that’s adaptable. But to what?To the organization’s perceived require-ments? To the whim of the worker? To afluid and immense universe of data sources,as near as your desktop and as remote asthe Web?

That’s what we set out to learn with thisWhite Paper. The answers herein are con-sistent: Portals are pretty easy to under-stand and pretty difficult to execute. Theirpower is in the details, and the details canbe elusive and complex. Read on. ❚

Andy Moore has often been a well-known presence in the emer-gence of new technologies, from independent telecommunicationsthrough networking and information management. Most recently,Moore has been pleased to witness first-hand the decade's most sig-nificant business and organizational revolution: the drive to leverageorganizational knowledge assets (documents, records, informationand object repositories) and the expertise and skill of the organiza-tions' knowledge workers in order to create true learning organiza-tions.He can be reached at [email protected] and welcomes feedbackand conversation.

“In business, knowledge is anextreme sport.”

...not for the timid.

daily basis, and the portal would deliverthat data in a meaningful way, based uponthe employee’s role in the organization.This type of portal could truly affect pro-ductivity by streamlining a user’s interac-tion with back-end data. The story is get-ting more compelling, but what about thebusiness problems that a portal is supposedto solve?

This is where next generation portalscome in. These portals speak to businessproblems by offering advanced featuresthat enable B2B transactions and automatebusiness processes. Organizations are nowturning portals outward as a means of en-hancing relationships with customers andpartners. Many organizations see this typeof portal functionality as the cornerstoneof an e-business strategy that emphasizesautomating and streamlining business pro-cesses, and increasing an organization’s speedof execution.

One of the portal’s strengths is connect-ing a company’s decision-makers with itsnetwork of suppliers, customers, and part-ners. Users gain quick and easy access toinformation, and its presentation can becustomized to meet each person’s uniqueneeds. This type of portal solution allowsthe rapid integration of complex, cross-enterprise business processes so the flowof information can be easily automatedbetween organizations and their partners.The value proposition is clear—by connect-ing resources with those of partners, stream-lining processes, and addressing commoncritical issues, companies can deliver valueand reduce inefficiencies across the entirevalue chain.

This increased efficiency and focus oncommunication afforded by the portal en-ables a company to create a “virtual enter-prise” where key production steps are out-sourced to partners. Many organizationsare implementing a corporate portal firstand are then growing this solution intomore of a B2B portal. By using a portal totie in back-end enterprise systems, a com-pany can manage the complex interactionsof the virtual enterprise partners throughall phases of the value and supply chain.

Linking disparate data sources andsystems makes it necessary to rely on acommon language or framework for aneffective portal solution. XML has leaptto the forefront in this area because of itsflexibility and cross-platform communi-cation capabilities.

Essentially, a good portal should offerseveral important features and functions.To summarize, these are:◆ adaptability to changes in business pro-

cesses and technology;◆ incorporation of XML as a basis for the

product’s logic and messaging capabilities;◆ robust technical capabilities, such as busi-

ness process automation and sophisti-cated rules evaluation;

◆ integration of people into the portal’sdesign and functionality—after all, a portalserves people;

◆ scalability to enable the addition ofusers, servers, processes, and transac-tions—all at high performance levels;and

◆ easy administration and configuration.Sequoia’s portal software, XPS™, built

from the ground up around XML messag-ing, makes it possible to access informa-tion from disparate data sources and pres-ent it via a personalized user interface. Asprocesses and partnerships evolve, XPS canquickly incorporate these changes so thatcompanies within the virtual enterprisecan effectively collaborate and exchangeinformation. This makes XPS an idealtool that grows with organizations thatinitially require a corporate portal or thosethat need to connect virtual enterprise busi-ness partners.

Real Problems, Real Solutions,Real Benefits

The proliferation of packaged applica-tions—such as ERP, supply chain manage-ment, and customer relationship manage-ment—has made integrating enterprise-wide data increasingly difficult. The rapidincrease in mergers and acquisitions hasleft many companies with highly discon-nected IT infrastructures, impeding theseamless flow of information needed formaximum efficiency. Meanwhile, the paceof today’s business environment demandsthat information be readily available toensure smart and fast decision-making.

The abundance of content, both insideand outside the enterprise, has made find-ing the right information increasingly diffi-cult. Employees often spend more timelooking for the right piece of informationthan actually using it, resulting in high frus-tration and low productivity. Further inef-ficiencies are found in the continued relianceon paper processes, manual approvals, andlong transaction cycles.


Using a Portal to SolveBusiness Problems

A tight economy, disappointing corporateearnings, a wildly fluctuating stock mar-ket—we’re living and working in turbulenttimes. With less available capital for invest-ments, it has become imperative to makethe right decisions when it comes to select-ing and implementing business technolo-gies. One technology that has the potential tomaximize investment return by leveragingexisting systems is the portal.

However, most portals aren’t imple-mented just because it would be nice to havecentralized access to data, but because it ismission-critical to access the information,automate a business process or connect withcustomers, partners and suppliers. The factthat portals can solve pressing businessproblems that speak to the bottom and toplines makes for compelling reasons to inves-tigate portal solutions.

What is a Portal—And What is a Good Portal?

In its earliest incarnation, Merrill Lynchdefined the enterprise information portal(EIP) as “a single gateway to personal-ized information needed to make informedbusiness decisions.” These early portalswere predominantly internally facing, in-tended to increase employee productivity byreducing the effort required to find andobtain crucial information. The businessdriver behind EIPs was that speeding theaccess to up-to-date, accurate, pertinent in-formation would increase employee pro-ductivity by reducing the time spent search-ing for information. This still remains alaudable objective, but it is not always acompelling enough reason for investingprecious IT dollars into a portal solution.

However, these initial portals weresuccessful, and inspired users and imple-menters to find new levels of portal func-tionality and utility. The concept of per-sonalization grew to encompass more thanjust access to personal information (suchas HR and benefits data) to include accessto corporate information that is presentedin a personalized fashion. Users couldeasily access the data they required on a

July/August 2001S4

By Mark Wesker, President & COO, Sequoia Software


XPS can address each of these commonbusiness problems, while also providingadditional benefits.

Work Smarter and FasterThe goal of any portal is to get the right

information to the right user at the righttime. XPS intelligently accesses informa-tion from back-end systems, delivers itthrough a personalized interface, and allowsusers to interact with the data—from any-where at any time. The immediate avail-ability of meaningful information, pre-sented the way users need to see it, resultsin smarter and faster decision-making, andultimately a more responsive and competi-tive organization.

Example: The Mills Corporation, a realestate investment trust that owns, devel-ops, leases, manages and markets 12 retailand entertainment destinations, is usingSequoia’s XPS to compress the amountof time it takes to sign a new tenant. Theyuse the product to collaborate, discusschanges to documents, and work withbusiness partners online. This eliminates alarge portion of the cost formerly spent onsending documents overnight betweenMills Corp. lawyers, future tenants, andtheir lawyers.

Streamlining the process of signing uptenants ultimately shortens the collectionperiod for receiving lease payments and getscash in Mills’ pockets faster.

Work Your WayXPS adapts to an organization’s exist-

ing business processes without forcingchanges to the business model. It also cancontinue to adapt over time. As processesand partnerships evolve, the product willquickly incorporate these changes so thatcompanies within the virtual enterprisecan effectively collaborate and exchangeinformation.

The product’s open, XML-pure archi-tecture also allows for additional function-ality to be snapped in as needed. Finally,the solution’s scalability ensures the por-tal will be able to accommodate a growinguser/information base while providing secureand reliable access.

Example: The EMI Group is using XPSto automate its Digital Release Man-agement process—the workflow of digi-tal assets associated with the creation ofan album. Like most companies in themusic industry, EMI’s various work de-partments rely on disparate databases fortheir information. Users frequently causeddelays in the process, often re-keying datato transfer information across departmentsand failing to meet the established releasedate for albums. XPS aggregated disparateapplications and databases and stream-lined the entire approval process. EMIwas able to leverage its existing process-es and applications and keep its businessmodel intact.

Example: Information exchange is criti-cal for those companies who elect to oper-ate in a virtual enterprise and outsourcetheir non-core activities to contract manu-facturers such as Flextronics. Flextronicsis using XPS to pull together informationfrom its various systems—from plant-floor statistical process control systemsto master production schedules located inan ERP system—into a single point ofaccess though which Flextronics and itscustomers can view, update, and act onthe information. Customers are alertedwhen potential problems such as compo-nent shortages become evident, and theyare better equipped to respond to urgentsituations. XPS also provides the flexi-bility to bring on new business partners rap-idly and efficiently into the Flextronics’network in a repeatable, reliable and scal-able process.

Get Started QuicklyXPS offers more robust functionality

out-of-the-box than any portal application.Rather than spending time on a lengthyimplementation and complex customiza-tions, companies can be up and runningquickly with a complete portal. The prod-uct’s powerful features, flexible architec-ture, and out-of-the-box functionality reduceimplementation time, and limit disruption todaily work activities.

Example: Waste Management, Inc, thepremier company in North America provid-ing comprehensive waste managementservice, wanted a portal that would providecritical information to its employees (suchas CEO and industry news, access to a doc-ument management system, information onimportant events, employee directory, etc.)but wouldn’t take that long to implement.

Waste Management selected XPS for itscorporate portal needs. Once the environ-ment was secure and stable, the productwas deployed in just a few weeks and theemployees were quickly accessing the in-formation they needed to do their jobs.

Maximize Your IT InvestmentsBy offering a full range of e-business

components within one package, XPSgives companies the right mix of function-ality at a reasonable price. By integratinginformation from disparate back-end sys-tems and automating business processes,XPS allows an organization to leverage itsexisting technology investments. This is acost-effective way for an organization tofocus on its core competency and increasecollaboration with vital partners, customersand suppliers.

A Flexible, Quick SolutionNo matter what the specific business

problem driving a portal implementation,it is important to choose a solution thatadapts quickly and easily to the existingenvironment. A major factor in consider-ing a portal is to leverage existing tech-nologies by integrating them so they act asone system, even though they might betechnically and geographically disparate.Very few portal software products offer thistype of flexibility, and because it is basedin XML, XPS offers the most flexibilityof all.

Any organization that wants to improveaccess to information within and across theenterprise, streamline and automate busi-ness processes, and manage the complexi-ties of a virtual enterprise should considerSequoia Software’s portal solution.

Sequoia SoftwareAs the leading provider of XML-pure

portal software, Sequoia Software (Nasdaq:SQSW) is redefining what portals do forbusiness. Sequoia’s adaptable softwarebrings together information, processes,and people and strengthens relationshipsthroughout the value chain. The versatilityof Sequoia’s XPS allows companies oper-ating in a virtual enterprise to more effec-tively collaborate, work smarter and faster,and maximize their IT investments. Sequoiahas an international customer base, includ-ing General Electric, Eastman Chemical,Flextronics, SC Johnson, Rock-Tenn,Waste Management, BBC, and LehmanBrothers. For more information, please call888-820-7917.

Note: On May 1, 2001 Citrix Systems, Inc.acquired Sequoia Software. As of this date,Sequoia Software assumed the Citrix name. ❚

“What about the business

problems that a portal

is supposed to solve?

This is where next-

generation portals

come in.”

EVP at one investment bank described itsintranet as “an information landfill.” A man-aging director at another worried aboutwhether “people will be able to meaningfullyaccess” the 600,000 documents in its docu-ment management system.

A Crucial but Underserved Business NeedOnly automating the process of organ-

izing corporate information will allowbusiness people to find what they need.Intranets, content management systems,and search engines work much more effec-tively when they rest on a foundation oforganized information. Building such afoundation, based on a consistent andcustomized framework, helps businessesrecoup their investments in these tech-nologies faster.

Automated classification involves threetasks:◆ Building a customized hierarchy for infor-

mation;◆ Classifying documents quickly and accu-

rately into this hierarchy; and◆ Presenting documents based on these

classifications as users need them.

An ideal solution would automate allthree tasks while allowing human judgmentto guide the process when appropriate.

First-generation classification solutionshave failed to address the first, and most ex-pensive, task: building an information hier-archy. As a result, their customers mustdepend entirely on human labor to identify theconcepts important to their business, organizethem into a framework, and flesh out thatframework by assembling training documentsor building classification rules. These set-upcosts are significant: eight employees of a syn-dication company spent four months buildinga modest hierarchy of 400 concepts withinone common classification solution. Soft-ware purchased to save employee time canitself consume thousands of employee hours.

What’s worse, these systems either entire-ly exclude human input from the classifica-tion process—as statistical classificationsystems do—or force every single detail ofclassification to be painstakingly designedby human beings—as rule-based systemsdo. In the first case, administrators struggleto understand their expensive “black boxes,”unable to control their behavior. In the latter,administrators suffer under the heavy burdenplaced on them.

The next generation of classification tech-nology will transcend these limitations to:◆ Automate hierarchy building to reduce set

up costs;◆ Allow as much—or as little—human input

into the classification process as desired;and

◆ Increase classification accuracy in theprocess.

Automated Hierarchy Building ReducesSet-up Costs

Setting up first-generation classifica-tion systems can be costly and time-con-


Solving information overload

Business people now spend half theirtime looking for information. And findingit will not get any easier—the volume ofcorporate data doubles each year while thepublic Web grows by over seven millionpages a day. To tame this flood, companiesspend billions of dollars on software de-signed to give their employees better accessto the information they need. Such invest-ments in enterprise portals, document man-agement systems, and text retrieval tech-nology give companies better ways topresent information.

But such solutions are only as good asthe organization of the content within them.Eighty-five percent of corporate informationand an even higher percentage of publicweb content is unstructured, and this infor-mation is difficult to organize. Keywordsearch has real limitations, as anyone whohas sorted through a lengthy list of searchresults can attest. As volume increases,manual tagging of unstructured informationquickly breaks down due to its expenseand inconsistency.

Without structure around information,workers struggle to locate what they needdespite all the money spent to help them. An

July/August 2001S6

By Nimish Mehta, President and CEO, PurpleYogi, Inc.

Nimish Mehta, Presidentand CEO of PurpleYogi,joined the company inMarch, 2001, with morethan 20 years of experiencein executive management of global software businesses.Mehta most recently servedas president and CEO of Impresse Corp.,an enterprisesoftware developer andprovider of collaborative

marketing solutions. Previously Mehta served as senior VP of the Industry & Front Office Applications Division ofOracle Corporation,where he oversaw all product developmentand marketing for the front office and vertical markets. Hisproven track record in scaling software businesses andmanaging operations will be a key factor in PurpleYogi’scontinued momentum in the marketplace.

Nimish MehtaPresident and CEO


suming, as both the design of the concepthierarchy and the assembly of the trainingdocuments or keyword rules are left en-tirely to human labor. Yet these processesare key to the eventual performance ofthe solution.

PurpleYogi addresses this problem bypartially automating the hierarchy-buildingprocess. By analyzing a sample set of doc-uments, a PurpleYogi Discovery System™builds a customized concept hierarchywithout any human intervention in a fewhours (depending on the size of the sam-ple). Its proprietary algorithms group docu-ments into natural categories and then or-ganize these categories into a hierarchy.In this way, the underlying structure ofthe information manifests itself, savingmuch human effort. Using PurpleYogi soft-ware tools, non-technical people edit thisinitial hierarchy, combining, splitting,adding, and deleting concepts and docu-ments as desired. The resulting hierarchy,with representative documents already res-ident in each node, gets a classificationsystem up and running immediately.Alternately, customers can launch theirsystem with one of several reference hier-archies, containing up to 12,000 concepts,that PurpleYogi has customized for indi-vidual industries.

Human Input Tailors the System to a Company’s Needs

Maintaining a classification system ischallenging. Concepts change meaningover time as technology and business prac-tices evolve—documents about “micropro-cessor design,” for example, are very dif-ferent today from what they were fiveyears ago. And new concepts arise all thetime: the newly-inaugurated “George W.Bush administration” suddenly needed totrack news about the “California powercrisis.” Only human judgment can decidewhether and how the classification systemshould deal with such changes.

For this reason, we at PurpleYogi believethat classification systems should allowas much—or as little—human input intoclassification as is desired. A set of GUIsoftware tools allows Discovery Systemadministrators to monitor system perform-ance, tweak the definition of a givenconcept, add and delete concepts, andeven alter the classification of an indi-vidual document. With tools to adjustsystem performance, human administra-tors can balance efficiency and control,selecting the optimal mix of automationand human intervention. (See the accom-panying diagram for an illustration.) Inthis way, human judgment supplementsmachine efficiency when desired andvice versa.

Multiple Classification MethodsIncrease Accuracy

Any given classification technologyhas its strengths and weaknesses. Statisticalclassifiers, for example, are good at detect-ing the general subject matter of documents(“software industry,” “operating systems”),while rule-based technology is better atdiscriminating between concepts at finerlevels of detail (“Microsoft WindowsXP”). Conversely, any solution that relieson a single classification technique willfail to classify all documents with consis-tent accuracy.

But systems that combine multiple classi-fication techniques can transcend the limi-tations of any single technique. By classi-fying a document in multiple ways andthen comparing the results, these systemscan achieve greater accuracy. DiscoverySystems employ both statistical and rule-based classifiers, as well as other propri-etary techniques. And they use the structureof the underlying concept hierarchy to pres-ent information grouped by topic instead ofin a flat list. According to researchers fromthe University of California-Berkeleyand Microsoft, people find information50% faster when it is presented in this way.

The BenefitsThe next generation of classification sys-

tems will help enterprises address the prob-lem of information overload. Automated clas-sification technology brings intranets to life,turning what was a passive display mediumand filing system into a dynamic tool thatresponds to the changing needs of a corpora-tion and its employees. When informationmoves from where it is created and travelsaround networks freely and effortlessly,employees can know more about what is hap-pening in their business, how their customers

and partners are being served, and what theyshould do to increase revenue and profits.And they will save time and minimize reworkby finding what they need quickly within thevast quantity of information available bothinside and outside the company.

A variety of IT systems can benefitfrom integration with a classification sys-tem, including:◆ Department-level document management

systems (e.g., Microsoft SharePoint);◆ Enterprise-scale document management

systems (e.g., Documentum);◆ Enterprise portals (e.g., Plumtree);◆ Content management systems (e.g.,

Interwoven);◆ Search engines (e.g., Inktomi);◆ CRM applications (e.g., Siebel); and◆ ERP applications (e.g., SAP).

The ability to better organize and displayunstructured content either directly improvesor complements all these applications.

The next generation of automated classifi-cation technology will include automatedset up, the ability to apply human judgmentwhen desired, and the integration of multipleclassification techniques. While enterpriseshave spent billions to address the problem ofinformation overload, the promise of these ITsolutions will go unfulfilled without a power-ful way to organize, classify, and present in-formation. Only automated classification willturn the abundance of information from acurse to a blessing. ❚

About PurpleYogi, Inc.PurpleYogi creates software that automatically organizes, classifies

and manages unstructured information.PurpleYogi allows enterprisesto create an information hierarchy of the concepts important to theirbusiness,classify internal and external information into this hierarchy andproactively deliver information to the people who need it. PurpleYogisolutions are applicable across a range of industries including profession-al services, financial services, and high-technology firms. For moreinformation, visit http://www.purpleyogi.com.

“Automated classification technologybrings intranets to life, turning whatwas a passive display medium and filingsystem into a dynamic tool that responds tothe changing needs of a corporation andits employees.”

more promise—but sends us back to thedrawing board.

Discussion groups and mail create anopportunity for employees in an organizationto “volunteer” their information. Severalchallenges still persist:◆ How are we sure that a person’s “volun-

teered” information is the best knowledgein the organization?

◆ Who is the best person we should proac-tively seek out on this topic?

◆ If this document is the best coverage ofthis topic should we involve its author?

◆ Indeed, how do I know this is our mostuseful document on this topic?

◆ What relevant information exists beyondour organization on this topic?Fundamental questions persist with

respect to having the confidence that the bestinformation and the best people are involvedin discussions and decision making. Ofcourse when these questions are made in the

context of business operations, the signif-icance is very apparent:◆ We have just received a claim against our

patents in Germany. Who is our bestauthority on German patent law?

◆ We need to respond to this RFP by the endof the week. Who should we put on thisteam to ensure that we take our best shot?

◆ We must have encountered this problembefore! Do we have anyone who has anyexperience with this problem in the field?


Knowledge Managementand Collaboration

Contemplating the impact of email todayis not unlike trying to envision a worldwithout telephones. Everybody has at leastone, uses it often and considers it a primarymeans by which to connect and communi-cate. What we have all come to embrace isthat email provides a ubiquitous means forindividuals to communicate directly withone or more people.

Email, however, does not eliminate someof the same cultural and communicationproblems that exist with telephone communi-cation. Email generally requires that the par-ties know each other and that they directlyinitiate conversations. The knowledge of whoto include in emails requires that those in-volved have some external knowledge of therelationships and skills of the parties.

Collaborative computing takes us aquantum step forward, by not only thread-ing discussions, providing some persistenceand context, but by allowing these discus-sions to take place in a more “public” forum.These discussions allow others, not initiallyincluded in the “distribution list,” to joindiscussions where they feel they can con-tribute to the conversation. This is the firststep in the corporate utilization of “organi-zational knowledge”. An organization cannow provide a platform for collaborationthrough messaging.

Volunteers vs. ExpertsSo now organizations can utilize their

networks to share information, and em-ployees can join discussions to share theirexperience and knowledge. So are we done?As with most technology advances, anothervision is soon created that provides even

July/August 2001S8

By Michael Loria, Vice President Marketing Strategy, Knowledge Management Group,Lotus Development Corp.

Michael Loria is vice presidentof marketing strategy forknowledge management at Lotus Development Corp., anIBM Company. Michael has heldvarious marketing and businessdevelopment positions with Internet infrastructure,imagingand enterprise softwarecompanies, and has extensiveexperience in the documentmanagement, imaging andworkflow industry. In addition

to marketing, Michael's extensive background includes business development, acquisitions, divestitures and strategicalliances with leading companies. Additionally, he has workedwith Lotus in the development of the Lotus Notes DocumentImaging program and with IBM's ImagePlus program.Recognized as a pioneer in the document imaging and management marketplace, Michael speaks at industry eventsaround the globe. Michael earned his bachelor's degree in Business from Saint John Fisher College.

Michael Loria

Vice PresidentMarketing Strategy

“Collaborative computing

takes us a quantum

step forward. “

Source: Lotus Research, KM Demand and Usage Survey of 667 KM Users and Considerers, IT and LOB decision makers,SM&L Businesses in NA (US & Canada), LA (Brazil), Europe (France & Germany) and Asia Pacific (Japan, China,Australia) – Aug – Oct 2000

Users view of the Strategic Benefits of KM(responses greater than 50%)


During the course of a given day manysuch questions go unanswered. These gapsin knowledge end up in many cases as gapsin performance, missed deadlines, inferioranswers, rework, and reinvention.

Research we have done at Lotus bears thisout. Knowledge Management users identifiedthe following reasons for their strategic in-vestment in Knowledge Management.

The Technology Piece-partsA number of technologies have emerged

to focus on providing solutions to many ofthe problems encountered by organizations.These technologies provide the foundation forcollaborative knowledge management. At abroad level they are:◆ Document Management◆ Workflow◆ Collaboration

These technologies have gone main-stream to the extent that organizationsgenerally understand the value proposi-tion of each of them, can identify anddescribe problems they solve, and theproducts meet the promise they articu-late. Taken individually each of these tech-nologies provides value to organizations.However, taken together, organizations cantruly begin to discover the knowledge with-in their organizations.

The Quest for Knowledge Discovery ?Context is Key

Collaborative Knowledge Managementtakes this foundation of messaging col-laboration and document sharing and cre-ates a platform for the discovery of knowl-edge—the identification of the experience,experts, learnings, and “prior art” of theorganization.

The common theme is the integrationof the people, the activities, and the docu-ments—to provide not only the content butthe context in which they were created andshared. It is this focus on context that isfundamental to knowledge discovery.

To establish context, knowledge discoverymust address:◆ Taxonomy◆ Search◆ Adaptability

Taxonomy creation allows an organiza-tion to essentially inventory “what theyknow.” By being able to “spider” existingknowledge bases (Web sites, documentrepositories, email attachments, etc.) or-ganizations create a framework for knowl-edge sharing. The inventory and relation-ship of documents and other unstructureddata are essential to establishing compre-hensive content and context.

Search enables people to query bothwithin the organization and beyond. Addi-

tionally, search is not just the simple match-ing of indexed items that meet a givensearch criteria but the retrieval, rankingand evaluation of the relationship of thecontent and context in which those docu-ments were created and used.

Additionally search is not limited todocuments but to the “experts” that creat-ed and used them. Being able to tie theactivities of individuals to searchable topicsis the foundation for the organization to trulyfind their experts.

Lastly, adaptability is key. With virtu-ally every interaction within an organiza-tion, every retrieval of a document, everydiscussion thread, the knowledge map ofthe organization changes. Therefore therelevancy and utility of documents andpeople are re-ranked to reflect these in-teractions and key to identifying the con-text in which the information is createdand used.

Collaborative Knowledge Management

The promise of collaborative knowl-edge management is one of confidence.Confidence that decisions are being made bythe most experienced people in the organ-ization, that prior activities and projectsare available as a resource and point ofreference, and that the documents beingshared do indeed represent those of thehighest utility. By implementing a collab-orative knowledge management system,organizations do gain the maximum lever-age of their “experts.” First by identifyingthose individuals with relevant capabilities,skills and knowledge, and second by provid-ing computing services for engagement and

communication—both instantly and throughcommunity building.

As companies face the challenges ofdoing more with less, getting to marketfaster, driving customer satisfaction tohigher levels—the attention turns to theassets that enable employees to do their jobsmore efficiently. Collaborative KnowledgeManagement is designed specifically to meetthese challenges. ❚

Michael Loria oversees Lotus’ marketingstrategy for Knowledge Management. This in-cludes products such as the recently intro-duced Knowledge Discovery System (KDS).He can be reached at [email protected] and welcomes feedback and comments.

“It is the focus on

context that is

fundamental

to knowledge

discovery.”

CommunityBuilding

CollaborateExpertise Tracking

Search

Documents

Workflow

The Building Blocks

developing best practices, enhance CRMefforts, or increase collaborative efforts via aportal. Regardless, certain departments wantto begin leveraging some of the benefitsof portals.

Regional Focused: In large organizationsespecially, portals are being rolled out ona regional basis. Big companies might rollout portals to their east coast-based oper-ations and have a completely separate portalfor their west coast facilities. The portal isbeing used to address regional problems ofinformation access, management and appli-cation integration.

Intranet Amalgamation: Again, as dis-cussed earlier, many organizations see portalsas a way of combining their intranets. Mar-keting, sales, manufacturing, finance, humanresources, and other lines of business havedeployed their own intranets—organizationsare looking to increase knowledge sharing, sothey are deploying portals as kind of a super-intranet, or, you may have heard this one, anintranet on steroids.

Inward Facing/Self-Service: The fact isthat the vast majority of portals are inwardfacing, designed and deployed to internalaudiences: self-serve applications; informa-tion sharing; amalgamation; and applicationintegration rolled out to the company andmaybe a few select business partners.

The real trend is that most portals aresmall-scale at the moment. This is due in partto the immaturity of the solution—organiza-

tions are testing the waters—and in part toscalability issues. That is, current portalssimply can’t handle the volume of trafficrequired to roll them out to hundreds ofthousands of customers and employees. Butthat is changing—fast.

Next-Generation PortalsAnalysts estimate that within two years,

portals may be the business-computingplatform. Outlined below are are some ofthe probable EIP deployments:

Large-scale Deployment: The evolutionof portal deployments into much largerimplementations that accommodate tensand hundreds of thousands of users.

Customer and Partner Facing: B2B andB2C initiatives will be added to the currentinward-facing deployments.

Global Focus: EIP deployments on aglobal and enterprise scale will replaceregionally focused ones.

The “Super Portal”: One problem we’recreating for ourselves by rolling portals outtoday on a regional and departmental basis isthat we’re using all kinds of portals. It’s notrare for a large organization to work withthree or more different portal vendors, inseparate regions or departments. The notionof the Federated Portal is emerging—por-tals that are capable of amalgamating differ-ent portals. As portals are used today to amal-gamate intranets, some organizations willneed a portal to amalgamate their portals...

Workplace Integration: A rapid evolu-tion of the application integration capabilitiesin portals is certain. Currently, we have theability to bolt-in applications on an interfaceor emulation basis. The future of integrationof business systems in portal environments ismuch more focused. The customization ofinformation extraction and presentation—rather than simply providing an emula-tion window, notifications and alerts—will emerge, along with other advancedintegration functionality.

Wireless Access: As use and acceptanceof WAP devices and other technologiesdevelops, portals will need to increase theirdevice independence. Hummingbird andsome other portal vendors have certain basicwireless capabilities today, but down theroad, portals will need to be accessible anduseable by different devices.

Hummingbird EIP: Providing the BuildingBlocks for Next Generation Portals

Hummingbird EIP is a fully customiz-able web-based workspace that provides asingle point of access to all business-criti-cal information and resources, includingstructured and unstructured enterprise data.Beyond providing an interface for accessingand viewing information, the HummingbirdEIP works by connecting users to content in


The Burgeoning Marketfor Enterprise Portals

Over the past two years, since MerrillLynch coined the term, enterprise informa-tion portals (EIP) have come a long way.While some of the early promise of the portalbusiness computing platform has yet to berealized, the growth of the market for enter-prise portals has been astounding. From anemerging market value of about $1 billion in1999, analysts estimate a potential of between$7 and $10 billion by 2005. Enthusiasticmarket predictions aside, actual deploymentand functionality of enterprise portals areadvancing at equally impressive rates.

Enterprise portals have evolved fromwhat can be thought of as a spruced up MyYahoo! or MSN for the business user, toimplementation as a means of amalgamat-ing intranets and information sources, to thecurrent use by many organizations as a wayof Web-enabling business processes. We arealso seeing portals rolled out to enable em-ployee self-service and collaborative capa-bilities. But portal solutions are movingfast. The next generation of enterprise portalswill move beyond the primarily inward-facing model to include business partnercollaboration, customer interaction, and sup-port for such functions as procurement sup-port. The idea of the “Workplace IntegrationPortal” will see organizations realizingtremendous return on investment and signifi-cant business benefit.

EIP: Current DeploymentsAs mentioned, enterprise portals are

being rolled out currently to primarily inter-nal users. Organizations are using portals fora variety of reasons. Some of the typicalcurrent implementations are outlined below:

Project/Role Focused: Many portalstoday are project or role focused—designedand deployed as either pilot projects or tosolve a particular pain. For example, a portalmight be deployed to help members of aproject track tasks, collaborate, and accessrequired information resources.

Departmental/Line of Business-Driven:There may be certain departments in theorganization that are innovators—perhapsthe marketing department wants to begin

July/August 2001S10

By Jay Weir, Product Marketing Manager, Hummingbird EIP, Hummingbird Ltd.

“The next generation

of portals will move

beyond the primarily

inward-facing model.”


context, enabling them to quickly process,filter and act upon information from anyenterprise source.

Meeting the Requirements ofTechnology and Business

Hummingbird EIP was designed fromthe beginning to satisfy the different needsof both IT professionals and line of busi-ness users.

For knowledge workers, HummingbirdEIP enables enterprise agility and helpsachieve maximum competitive advantage.For IT departments, its ease of implementa-tion and administration guarantees a rapid andsubstantial return on investment by cuttingcosts associated with developing customizedsystems and providing a solution that is fasterto deploy and easier to maintain.Knowledge Worker Benefits◆ Single Login◆ Unified Search◆ Personalization◆ Application Integration/Centralized View◆ Collaboration◆ Information Technology Benefits◆ Openness◆ Security◆ Scalability◆ Openness

It is increasingly important for solutionsto be deployable and accessible across avariety of platforms and devices.

With a platform, application, and device-independent architecture, the HummingbirdEIP allows for maximum flexibility.Hummingbird EIP is deployable on bothUNIX and Windows NT and accessible fromPC, laptop, and even wireless devices.

Another element of “openness” is theability to extend the investment in existingtechnologies. With its e-Clip (XML and Javaplug-ins) architecture, organizations are freeto bolt in data sources, mission-critical appli-cations, and even other information systemswithout the need for the custom program-ming or tedious interfacing traditionally asso-ciated with integration tasks.Security

As with any Internet solution, securityissues are paramount. Organizations need toknow that their information, data sources, andmission-critical applications are safe fromunauthorized access.

Hummingbird EIP is ideal for both usersand IT administrators. Hummingbird hasdeveloped a technology called CommonAuthentication Protocol (CAP) Serverthat delivers the single login model toHummingbird EIP. By entering a single pass-word and username, users gain access to alldata sources, applications, and collaborativetools they would normally have in a client/server network environment. From an admin-istrative standpoint, user authentication is

managed through existing security profiles(LDAP, NTLM, ADS, NDS, etc.), elimi-nating the need to create and maintain addi-tional security accounts for users. Built-inencryption and support for standardauthentication models minimize requiredsecurity maintenance.Scalability

A key benefit of the enterprise informa-tion portal is that it is capable of increasingstaff efficiency and effectiveness. Time sav-ings attributable to the centralized envi-ronment of the enterprise portal are signif-icant. However, without a scalable archi-tecture, increased efficiency turns quicklyinto insufficiency.

Hummingbird EIP was built from theground up to be a true enterprise strengthsolution. This allows organizations to imple-ment with confidence, knowing that theirportal server can accommodate not only thou-sands, but hundreds of thousands of users ifneed be.Search and Categorization

Rapid access to information is the basisof enterprise portals. However, because organ-izations, over time, have gathered so muchinformation in so many different formats,providing this access is not an easy task.Hummingbird EIP provides a proven, uni-fied solution that allows users to find bothstructured and unstructured data from alldatabases, repositories, and file systems,both internal and outside the organization.

Hummingbird EIP doesn’t just find anddisplay information. Rather, it presentscontent in context by automatically gener-ating business taxonomy and categorizingresults into commonsense groupings—bysource, relevance, topic, or concept. Userscan even define custom agents that monitorsources and repositories to automaticallycollect relevant information and send notifi-cations to alert the user of content additionsand updates.

Application IntegrationIt is critical for enterprise portals to

access other internal and external appli-cations. This functionality ensures thatusers will be able to not only retrieve andview information, but to act on it. Forexample, users may want to perform analy-sis on some sales data they received, ordelve into a monthly performance report.They’ll need immediate access to businessintelligence and reporting tools to do thiswork and may even require collaborationtools or facilities to publish and distributetheir findings.

Hummingbird EIP provides users with acentralized, unified, and consistent environ-ment for interactions with all applications.The integration services greatly simplify bothenterprise deployment and interactions forthe end user, thereby reducing costs andimplementation time.

PersonalizationPersonalization within enterprise portals

allows users to assemble the elements theyneed in the way that makes most sense tothem. Similar to the concept of consumerportals such as My Yahoo! and MSN, the ideais to create a personal website with all therequired and desired elements. However,besides choosing from things like local newsfeeds, stock tickers, sports scores, horoscopes,and weather reports, users can add such com-ponents as mission-critical applications,department-specific data sources, businessintelligence and reporting tools, and collab-orative features.

Hummingbird EIP also incorporates avariety of unique features that allows users tocreate their very own web-based workspace.Users can build multi-page environments tocustomize the portal to their individual needsand provide for maximum productivity gain.Moreover, users can develop and choose fromvarious themes that provide a personal or cor-porate look and feel, as well as the ability toapply platform-specific interfaces for desktopPCs and palm devices. This allows users toaccess EIP content regardless of what devicethey are using or where they are located.

Collaboration and FeedbackOne of the great benefits of enterprise

portal solutions is the unequaled collabora-tive capability they make possible. Imaginebeing able to instigate immediate action tocorrect a misinformed decision as a result ofyour own analysis and findings. Think of thecost savings of organizing an online confer-ence to review concepts for an upcomingadvertising campaign, rather than arrangingfor ten attendees to fly to the main office forthe day. By enabling this type of on-the-fly collaboration, enterprise portals presenttremendous opportunities for increasingbottom-line benefits.

Hummingbird EIP provides a compre-hensive feedback loop that allows usersto rank pages, features, and functions, andmake recommendations. Additionally, theHummingbird EIP facilitates real-time mes-saging by providing users with the ability tosend messages to other online users. ❚

“Current portals simply

can't handle the volume. . .

But that is changing fast.”

this approach is time-consuming and expen-sive, and may delay portal implementation.Likewise, these implementations may havereduced interactivity or may not be feasiblebecause the “download and run” model istoo resource-intensive.

How can interactive, legacy applicationsbe Web-enabled for inclusion in enterpriseportals without requiring re-engineering thatcan significantly delay and/or dilute ROIfrom the portal implementation? And howcan these applications be more efficientlymanaged, deployed and supported to aug-ment the cost benefits of a portal?

Server-based Application Delivery and Management

The most compelling answer to thesecond question is server-based comput-ing, a key enabling technology for portalimplementations that also reinforces theportal concept of information aggregation.Analogous to an enterprise portal, which cen-tralizes comprehensive information resourcesand serves them via a Web browser, server-based computing centralizes applications ona server and deploys them to users via asingle interface. Just as an enterprise por-tal improves user productivity through sin-gle-point information access, a server-basedarchitecture enhances the overall efficiencyof a portal solution through single-pointapplication administration.

In the server-based computing model,application processing, administration, sup-port and deployment are based 100% on acentral server. Users view and work withthe application interface, sending key-strokes and mouse movements over thenetwork to the server and receiving screenupdates, files and other data. Because pro-cessing takes place on the server, anydevice becomes a thin client and only min-imal data travels across the network, result-ing in greatly improved application per-formance and security.

This architecture enables applicationaccess on virtually any device, including wire-less and handheld communication devicesand information appliances, running on a

wide array of platforms. Device and plat-form flexibility helps to fulfill the promiseof Web computing as the ideal model fortoday’s mobile workers, who can moveseamlessly from one device to another andreceive a consistent, personalized informa-tion set, including applications.

Citrix Systems, Inc. offers server-basedcomputing products that help organizationsgain efficiency and reduce Total Cost ofApplication Ownership (TCA). When usedin conjunction with a portal solution, Citrix®

MetaFrame™ application server softwarereduces costs for portal administrators byenabling centralized application rollout, per-sonalization, administration and security.Specifically, Citrix application serving tech-nology delivers cost benefits by:

Reducing TCA through single-pointmanagement. Citrix centralizes applicationadministration, support and deployment,enabling IT staff to implement rollouts andupgrades and conduct troubleshooting andtraining from the server farm rather thanhaving to visit each desktop.

Speeding up ROI on new applications.Users are able to access new applications andupgrades as soon as they are installed onthe server.

Permitting the most diverse set of clientplatforms to benefit from the portal. CitrixIndependent Computing Architecture (ICA®)technology, which provides the architec-ture underlying the Citrix applicationserving environment, supports Windows®,Macintosh®, UNIX® and Web operating plat-forms. This allows users to continue usingtheir current devices, or choose inexpensivethin devices.

Supporting application deployment viaany connection, with minimal bandwidthdemands. The advent of wireless communi-cation devices that incorporate Web browserswill undoubtedly generate user demand forportal access. Citrix ICA enables applicationaccess over wireless networks as well asmore traditional wired LANs and WANs withvery low bandwidth requirements.

Fast Web-enablement of ApplicationsDelivers Immediate ROI

Returning to the first question about howto adapt legacy applications for portal-basedaccess, there is a unique product that helpscompanies quickly launch comprehensiveenterprise portals—and quickly begin reap-ing their benefits—by Web-enabling exist-ing Windows, UNIX and Java™ applica-tions without rewrites. With this approach,applications are not converted to HTML oranother language; rather, they are deliveredin their original form with full functionalityintact. In addition, the user interface remainsthe same, so there is no need for user retrain-ing on the application. Organizations can alsotailor the applications each user receives, and


Bringing Applications tothe Enterprise PortalApplication Access in the Digital Economy

In today’s fast-paced global marketplace,the ability to give mobile, distributed workersready access to the applications and data theyneed for sound decision-making has becomevitally important for businesses striving to beproductive, agile and profitable. The popular-ity of Web-based computing, combined withthe need to expedite information access,has spurred adoption of enterprise portals.In their fullest manifestation, these companyWeb sites aggregate, personalize and serveapplications, data and content to users, whileoffering management tools for organizingand using information more efficiently. Insome companies, portals have replaced thedesktop, providing a virtual workplace withthe ease, convenience and ubiquity of brows-er-based access. Portals also deliver ROIbenefits from faster, easier informationaccess, including increased worker produc-tivity, more effective decision-making andgreater IT efficiency.

True desktop replacement means a portalneeds to offer a full complement of infor-mation resources. Business applications are,arguably, the most vital category of infor-mation that workers need to access forplanning, decision-making and execution.They also typically represent a major in-vestment—and often a competitive advan-tage—that the corporation should continueto use when moving to a Web-based sys-tem. From the standpoint of productivity,application access via the portal is neededso users are not forced to switch back andforth between the browser and the desktopto do their work. With a split browser/desktop system, it is more difficult tolocate and coordinate material from vari-ous sources. Users are also typically tied tothe desktop device because it provides keyapplications that may not be accessible viathe browser.

All these business drivers make a com-pelling case for including existing and up-coming applications in the portal imple-mentation. However, to date, few applica-tions have been developed specifically forWeb-based delivery. Although it is possibleto use existing applications by re-engineer-ing them for Web publication using HTML,scripting, Java and other proprietary means,

July/August 2001S12

By Michael Richtberg, Director, Product Management, Portal Products, Citrix Systems, Inc.


personalize the browser and content aroundthese applications.

This product, Citrix NFuse™ applicationportal software, works with Citrix MetaFrameto deliver existing, interactive, server-basedapplications via a portal. While MetaFrameprovides server-side command and controlof applications, NFuse instantly “Webifies”those applications, helping to create a cen-tral, online virtual workplace that promotesuser efficiency and leverages a company’sinvestment in proprietary and off-the-shelf applications.

In short, this Web-enablement technologyallows companies to immediately begin receiv-ing both tangible and intangible returns ontheir portal implementation. With NFuse as akey part of their portal solution, customers can:◆ Continue to use the business applications

they have already spent money to acquire/develop. Citrix application servers sup-port Windows, UNIX and Java applica-tions, enabling NFuse to provide portal-based access to the most widely usedbusiness and productivity solutions.Companies can “reuse” critical businesssolutions on the Web instead of payingto replace them;

◆ Instantly integrate and publish virtually anyapplication into a standard Web browserwhile retaining full application interac-tivity and eliminating time-consuming,costly application rewrites;

◆ Avoid user retraining on existing appli-cations because the user interface staysthe same;

◆ Personalize the delivery of applications toindividuals or groups based on login identity;

◆ Create a seamless Web environment with anintuitive interface for users by using the sameapplications they already understand; and

◆ Leverage the powerful management andsecurity features of Citrix MetaFrameapplication server software.

Support for Corporate Portal SolutionsCitrix NFuse supports and complements

leading portal solutions, such as the CitrixXPS™ product (via the acquisition ofSequoia Software), giving them the capabili-ty to incorporate published interactive appli-cations in their offering. This enables portalsolution providers to offer customers compre-hensive access to all the tools, informationand applications they need. Citrix also sup-ports many other portal products throughalliances with the other industry players.

Case StudiesMerrill Lynch

One of the world’s leading financial man-agement and advisory companies, MerrillLynch sought a simpler way to provide appli-cation access to its Jacksonville, Florida facil-ity’s users when they were working from

home, the road and other company offices.Employees were frustrated by the difficultyof connecting remotely, and IT staff wasspending an unacceptable amount of effort toconfigure and support remote desktops.

Merrill Lynch turned to Citrix NFuse tocreate an intranet-based corporate portal.Interactive applications, including inquirytracking and email, have been integrated andpublished to a secure Web site, where they areaccessed by more than 500 users via a VirtualPrivate Network. The personalization capa-bilities of NFuse allow Merrill Lynch to tailorapplications and information to specific users,including partner firms.

The benefits Merrill Lynch has achievedwith its NFuse portal include cost and timesavings from eliminating remote desktopconfiguration, improved application access,and the ability to share specialty applicationsamong different offices.

ProTierProTier, a New Orleans-based Application

Service Provider (ASP), offers IndependentSoftware Vendors a customized applicationhosting solution for their customers. To dif-ferentiate itself from other ASPs, ProTierneeded to efficiently deploy custom hostedapplications to end users via a Web portal.ProTier is using Citrix NFuse to integrateand publish applications to its Web portalfrom which hundreds of end users accesstheir applications via a Web browser.

Using NFuse benefits ProTier by pro-viding rapid application deployment overthe Web without re-engineering, a signifi-cant reduction of bandwidth requirements,and successful fulfillment of Service LevelAgreements. As ProTier’s exclusive de-ployment platform, NFuse has greatly im-

proved the ASP’s ability to deploy hostedapplications through the Web.

ConclusionCitrix application portal and application

serving technologies help make enterpriseportals a fiscally attractive proposition forcompanies. By enabling the reuse of existingapplications and infrastructure in the portalenvironment, offering application access fromwireless as well as wired networks anddevices, and providing a server-based architec-ture proven to reduce computing costs, Citrixstrengthens the value proposition of portalsand makes their implementation easier, fasterand more successful. ❚

About CitrixCitrix Systems, Inc. is a global leader in application serving soft-

ware and services that extend the virtual workplace everywhere byproviding secure, reliable access to applications and information, anda consistent user experience, on any device or network connection.Citrix solutions enable organizations of all types to deliver business appli-cations to users with greater manageability, flexibility and cost-effective-ness. The company’s products, including Citrix MetaFrame applicationserver software, Citrix NFuse application portal software and CitrixIndependent Computing Architecture (ICA), a core application servingtechnology, have been widely adopted by the corporate mainstream toachieve key business goals. More than 100,000 organizations, including99 of the Fortune 100, use Citrix software. Headquartered in FortLauderdale, Florida, Citrix markets its solutions worldwide throughvalue-added resellers, system integrators, consulting firms and OEMlicensees. Citrix is traded on The Nasdaq Stock Market SM under thesymbol CTXS and is part of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

For more information, please visit the Citrix Web site at http://www.citrix.com.

For information on Citrix NFuse visit: http://www.citrix.com/products/nfuse/default.asp; Or call 800.427.9269

Citrix®, ICA®, MetaFrame™ and NFuse™ are registered trademarksor trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. in the US and other countries. Allother trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of theirrespective owners.

Citrix NFuse software enables instant personalized delivery of existing Windows, UNIX and Java applications to be integrated and published intoa Web environment for access on any device running a standard browser.

tion: loading, parsing, understanding, retriev-ing, filtering, and delivering content but haveignored the most important component inthe enterprise: the user.

Personalized RetrievalThe next evolution in enterprise informa-

tion retrieval and management will comefrom tools that incorporate context intoinformation retrieval. Context comes fromunderstanding the user and the value of theinformation sources they seek. By under-standing and interpreting information frompersonal profiles, RecomMind solves this

problem by tailoring information results tothe end user. “Everybody is used to seeinglong lists of results but what people wantare results that are relevant to them,” addsDr. Jan Puzicha, RecomMind’s CTO.“Without understanding and incorporatinguser data into search, there is little contextfor the results.”

User-based RecommendationsWhen searching for information, most

people in an enterprise pick up the phoneand start dialing until they find the personwho points them to the source. Picking upthe phone works because the value of infor-mation is defined by users, not by how manykey words are in a document. Incorporatingthis knowledge into search practices is thekey to improving search results. RecomMinddoes this by first linking an individual withsimilar people who share a common interest,and then incorporating this data into informa-tion retrieval and management. For eachsearch, the user also retrieves results thatothers have found useful.

Even though we know that informationretrieval should focus on the user, the indus-try has not made strides to incorporate usercontext into information retrieval and man-agement. Until now, the focus has been pure-ly on content. The next generation of tools forenterprise users will be focused on betterunderstanding those users and meeting theirindividual needs. ❚

Dr. Hofmann is the Chief ExecutiveOfficer and Chief Scientist of RecomMind.He is one of the leading experts in machinelearning and has a strong background inartificial intelligence and computationalstatistics. Dr. Hofmann has pioneered sta-tistical methods for information retrieval,text mining, and user modeling. He can becontacted at [email protected] andwelcomes feedback and conversation.


Making PersonalizedRetrieval a Reality inKnowledge Enterprises

“Information needs vary from person toperson,” says Dr. Thomas Hofmann, founderand chief scientist at RecomMind, an infor-mation management and retrieval compa-ny in Berkeley, CA. “Until now, tools havebeen built for the enterprise that focus onmanaging content but little has been doneto understand the needs of the user. Twopeople in your enterprise with differentneeds type in the same query, why shouldthey retrieve the same results? This illus-trates the fundamental problem in infor-mation retrieval and management.” Untilnow, enterprises have spent significantresources on the content side of the equa-

July/August 2001S14

“Until now, tools have been

built for the enterprise that

focus on managing content

but little has been done to

understand the needs of

the user. Two people in your

enterprise with different

needs type in the same query,

why should they retrieve

the same results?”

By Dr. Thomas Hofmann, Chief Scientist, RecomMind Inc.


information, collaborating, analyzing andtaking action. Each task represents a sig-nificant commitment of human capital,with all of the associated expenses. Multiplythese expenses by the number of function-al areas and business processes in anenterprise, and the benefits of improvingand streamlining the decision cyclebecome apparent.

What’s needed is a collaborative deci-sion management solution within an enter-prise portal architecture that delivers morerelevant information and experience to theuser in less time. In other words, an enter-prise portal that represents the convergenceof collaboration, knowledge managementand business intelligence. Such a portalaccesses content from disparate datasources, synchronizes information arounda role, process or project, allows users tocollaborate with subject matter expertsthroughout the decision network for insightand experience, and extends the portal tothe value chain both inside and outside ofthe firewall.

Enterprises possess tremendous intel-lectual capital. The challenge has been, andcontinues to be, providing access to thatcapital and capturing it for development ofbest practices and shared learning. Webelieve that users should be able to createnew or ad hoc workspaces focused on aspecific topic, decision or project, populateit with relevant information, invite others

to participate, and effectively share infor-mation. The decision-making process isnow collaborative and interactive. Pre-packaged workspaces, designed for specificroles or tasks within an enterprise or forvertical markets, should also be available,and we call these Collaborative DecisionApplications (CDA).

For example, a sales associate using aCDA for sales teams and customers canhave workspaces for clients, opportunitiesand prospects. These deliver synchronizedcustomer-specific information from struc-tured data sources such as accounts payableand receivable, CRM and ERP systems, andunstructured data sources including docu-ments, discussions, news groups, informa-tion feeds and e-mail. These workspacescan easily be shared among the entireaccount team—both inside and outsidethe organization.

The ideal portal incorporates all of thefunctionality and performance associatedwith mature enterprise information portalsand introduces a level of capability thatelevates the portal to a tool that improvesan enterprise’s business intelligence, knowl-edge management and collaboration abili-ties—effectively turning these formerlyindependent capabilities into a core compe-tency for business. ❚

About InfoImageWith the patent-pending InfoImage Federated Portal

ArchitectureTM, InfoImage Decision Portal speeds the decision-makingprocess at all levels of the organization and provides unmatchedinteroperability and scalability in the enterprise portal market.InfoImage enables business intelligence, knowledge managementand collaboration across the value chain. Certified by BenchmarkQA,InfoImage enterprise decision portal software supports three millionusers through a network of federated portal servers. As the first vendorwith certified results showing global scalability, InfoImage offersmultinational organizations the ability to collaborate throughout theenterprise regardless of the number of users. Founded in 1992,Phoenix, Ariz.-based InfoImage has offices across the United Statesand is online at http://www.infoimage.com.

Using Portal Technology toImprove and StreamlineBusiness Processes andDecision-making

Today’s progressive organizations haveempowered knowledge workers with frontline decision-making responsibility andexpect them to make good decisions—yetorganizations have not provided the toolsto enable knowledge workers to be effec-tive. As a result, they are empowered butnot fully informed.

With the advent of corporate and enter-prise information portals, businesses gainedtools to help knowledge workers aggregate,access and navigate through data from inter-nal databases, internal document repositoriesand Web sites. As the technology hasevolved, navigation has become moresophisticated, content more relevant, andinterfaces more user-friendly and intuitive.Even accounting for these advancementsin portal technology, portals remain pas-sive presenters of information—allowinginformation and applications to “coexist”but not much more.

With traditional corporate or informa-tion portals, knowledge workers mustmanually and mentally transform theirdata into useful information that can beacted upon. A typical business functionwithin a traditional corporate portal,such as finding information relevant to acustomer inquiry, requires users to navi-gate through multiple pages and performseparate searches, sorts and filters to getrelated information from each datasource. Nowhere in this process is theability to collaborate with others for in-sight and experience.

Gather More Information andExperience in Less Time

The ability to make a sound businessdecision involves identifying and locating

By Randall Eckel, Chief Executive Officer, InfoImage

Randall W. EckelChief Executive Officer

Randall W.Eckel, a co-founder of InfoImage, has beenChief Executive Officer of InfoImage and a memberof the Board of Directors since 1992. Mr. Eckel is arecognized expert in collaborative and knowledgemanagement solutions delivered through theframework of enterprise portals and is regularlyquoted in trade and business publications.

“With traditional portals, knowledge

workers must manually and mentally

transform their data into useful

information that can be acted upon.”

a geometric rate. This article discusseshow to gain business value by unleashingthe often overlooked collaborative capa-bilities of Enterprise Information Portal(EIP) technology.

Understanding the EnterpriseInformation Portal Value Proposition

Portal technology is defined in vari-ous ways, but a practical means of under-standing the value of portal technology isby examining significant usage. Significantbecause, at a practical level, if the capa-bility isn’t used to derive business value,no business benefits can be realized. Thetrick is to turn features and functionalityinto practical business benefits. The follow-

ing table provides some common featuresand functionality of portal technology andthe associated business benefits.

However, there are downsides to thesecapabilities. As stated previously, if dis-cretion in how to use them is never real-ized, the benefits can be very easily turnedinto confusion. The real value then is notin having a portal with the most bells andwhistles, but in realizing the benefit bycapitalizing on the features that will pro-vide the most value from the investment.In doing so, however, there must be a com-mon level of understanding in order to facil-itate the benefits.

Defining the Corporate SemanticA common level of understanding is a

key goal in deriving tangible business ben-efits. This is a process that involves corpo-rate standards, common and well-definedbusiness processes and enterprise meta dataand, more importantly, meaning. With acorporate semantic, a common understandingof business terms and processes exists atevery functional level within the organiza-tion. This occurs when the portal and itsunderlying infrastructure supports context.In understanding the business grammar andthe semantic structure of an organization, itbecomes vital to help every person withinthe organization to obtain the necessaryinformation to do their jobs and developmeaning from that information in the propercontext. This translates into the portal beinga context provider. As a context provider,then, the portal must provide the propercontext through a well thought-out strat-egy. That strategy should include theselogical constructs:


Enterprise InformationPortals: Portals in Puberty

Remember that awkward time in yourlife when you suddenly underwent a lotof unexpected changes that affected justabout every aspect of your life? The upsideof these changes is that they are part ofthe maturing process.

According to most analysts, we areout of the early adoption stage of portaltechnology, so it’s appropriate to say wemust be in portal puberty. The signs arethere: most vendors are beginning to sta-bilize on a host of common features andfunctionality; standards organizationsare already complaining there are none;some companies are buying and imple-menting portals for unknown reasons;and the education and litany of portalbuzz (this article included) has grown at

July/August 2001S16

By Robert Bolds, Solution Manager, Knowledge Management and Portal,Computer Associates International, Inc.

“ We are out of the

early adoption

stage of por tal

technology. . .

we must be in

por tal puber ty.”

Common Features Business Benefits

Search Quick access to hidden information to facilitate business processes.

Categorization Ability to organize information assets by business process, group, or jobcategory thus promoting access to relevant information.

Query, Reporting & Analysis Better decision support as well as information dissemination and sharing.

Integration of information Ability to access through a single interface, all applications and information and applications required for increased job throughput.

Publish & Subscribe Maturation of business processes by collaborating with others,sharing information,and improving business performance.

Personalization Arranging the interface to meet an individual’s needs and desires forincreased job productivity.


◆ Business integration vs. informationintegration or application integration.Integrating information and applica-tions are first steps to support businessintegration. A portal can support appli-cation and information integration butthe weakness at this point can be alack of providing business context, ormeaning, to the information. Businessintegration is the integration and trans-lation through the meta data layer ofinformation and applications to pro-vide context.

◆ Process Integration. In addition toproviding context, the portal solutionshould support process integration.Process integration includes workflow,categorization and taxonomy servic-es. These services provide the founda-tion for context. Information with work-flow, categorization and taxonomyequals context.

◆ Application & Information Integration.This is a strict reference to source sys-tems from which information is gener-ated. It also includes the data adminis-tration layers, such as cleansing, trans-formation, and extraction.

◆ Enterprise Meta Data Repository. Metadata is vital as the mechanism for con-text. The repository should not includeevery piece of information that exists,only the information that will be utilizedto provide meaning. The repository thenbecomes the “single version of under-standing,” not just the “single version ofthe truth.”Defining the EIP as a context provider

is the key to realizing business value andbenefit because it provides knowledgeworkers with a single personalized inter-face that facilitates what they do—withmeaning. In this manner, context willdetermine meaning.

Enabling Context through anEnterprise Information Portal

By utilizing the key layers identifiedpreviously, the portal becomes an en-abling solution for all knowledge work-ers, whether they are internal employees,customers or partners. But achieving thetechnical requirements needed to enablecontext to be unlocked from within theportal is no small task. However, theserequirements for enabling context alsodrive business benefit. One of the firstrequirements is the need for role-basedcontent. Role-based content means thatthe scope of content provided throughthe portal to an individual user is rele-vant for defining business benefit. A primeexample is providing too much informa-tion through the portal, such as syndicat-ed content, thereby overloading knowl-

edge workers with irrelevant informa-tion. Role-based content requires rele-vant information.

The next requirement is the need fortask-based knowledge. This differs fromrole-based content in that task-based knowl-edge is collaborative information that helpsdefine additional value beyond any particu-lar role. For example, if a material analystanalyzing usage patterns for a particularassembly notes a high quantity of rejectedassemblies through the portal, collabora-tion through a threaded discussion—or viapublished findings in the workgroup withQA and purchasing—might reveal that anew vendor was selected. This task-basedknowledge would then be instrumental inhelping the analyst recommend that thecheaper vendor was actually costing moredue to poor quality parts.

Another requirement is the need forquality in context. This requirement ex-tends through every layer of the informa-tion infrastructure and into the portal.Quality of content through the integrationlayers, and residing within the repository,will produce proper interpretation of con-tent. The interpretation of content on thebasis of quality context produces betterdecision support, improved workflow andconsistent benefits.

Standardization is another require-ment for enabling context. Standardizationextends not just to information but toprocesses, as well. According to BarryBoehm and Victor Basili, “Disciplinedpersonal practices can reduce defect intro-duction rates up to 75%,” (Pursue BetterSoftware, Not Absolution for DefectiveProducts, Software Engineering Institute).The principle here is that standard pro-cesses can reduce mistakes, resulting inhigher operational efficiency. This is oneof the primary goals of enterprise infor-mation portals.

The final requirement is that of unifi-cation. The notion of unification is theresult of all the above requirements beingfulfilled. It further implies that none ofthe requirements are mutually exclusive

because the inter-relationship betweenthe factors will provide additional benefit.Unification of the common technologyfeatures, the strength of the collaborativenature of the enabling requirements, theintegration of knowledge to create contextand the interaction of the worker with theportal all combine to produce tangible busi-ness benefits.

SummaryPuberty is that maturing stage where

many factors come together to produce amore experienced, mature and productiveadult. By understanding the value proposi-tion of portals we can understand not justthe technology, but also the business ben-efits that can be realized by enterpriseinformation portals. And it doesn’t stop atthis point, because the technology in andof itself won’t produce benefits. Using thetechnology to enable context, we can derivebusiness benefits by creating a corporatesemantic through the integration layers,resulting in meaningful business value forevery knowledge worker. The requirementsfor achieving this goal are to provideknowledge workers with role-based con-tent and task-based knowledge to improvebusiness processes. Additionally, the quali-ty of context and standardization must beconsidered to produce increased opera-tional efficiency. The combination of theserequirements results in a unified, collabora-tive work environment. The benefits of theportal are not just inherent in the technolo-gy itself, but can be found to produce busi-ness value and benefit by creating businesscontext and meaning through a planned,strategic infrastructure. ❚

Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE: CA) delivers thesoftware that manages eBusiness. CA's world-class solutionsaddress all aspects of eBusiness process management, informationmanagement, and infrastructure management in six focus areas:enterprise management, security, storage, eBusiness transformationand integration, portal and knowledge management, and predictiveanalysis and visualization. Founded in 1976, CA serves organizationsin more than 100 countries, including 99 percent of the Fortune 500companies. For more information, visit http://ca.com.

“Defining the EIP as a context provider

is the key to realizing business value.”

◆ Not all information can be shared pub-licly. The sharing of sensitive informa-tion is limited to the right set of circum-stances and a certain set of people. Thistype of information usually never getspublished, and the opportunity to gainfurther value from the information iscompletely lost.

◆ Tacit knowledge is very difficult to cap-ture. Properties such as instinct, feel, taste,and smell enable people to solve problemsor make decisions, but codifying thisknowledge is nearly impossible.

Unlock New Wealth From Your Company’s Expertise

Complex problems with urgent dead-lines are solved most effectively and quick-ly when the right information and the rightpeople can be accessed. While an EIP canmake information more accessible, equallyimportant is making people’s expertise avail-able. People are necessary to transform in-formation into results. Until now, organiza-tional fluidity, geographical barriers, andcomplex management structures preventedpeople from effectively finding and connect-ing with each other.

An EIP with integrated access to corpo-rate expertise dramatically increases userproductivity and effectivness. However, auto-mation is the key to successfully harnessingemployee intelligence—the tracking processfor "who-knows-who" and "who-knows-what" must be automatic, non-invasive, andcontinuous. Automation ensures the mostcurrent information is always captured, with-out burdening users.

One rich and untapped source of corpo-rate knowledge is e-mail and the documentssent through e-mail. E-mail is already thebackbone for corporate communications—an Accenture study shows that the averageU.S. manager sends and receives 220 e-mail messages per day. The use of e-mailas a source for systematically cataloguingemployee expertise eliminates the need forpeople to specifically create documents aboutwhat they know.

Harvest Private Knowledge and Maintain Privacy

The notion of mining knowledge in e-mailoften raises a privacy concern with users.These concerns are eased only when userssee that they have complete control of theirinformation and choices over what is shared.At the same time, an employee’s privateknowledge remains critically valuable. Howcan the organization tap this resource withoutbreaching privacy?

Tacit uses a contact-brokering model,balancing access to private informationwith privacy. The system matches requestsfrom information-seekers with subject-matter experts based on encrypted, pri-vate information. The system then forwardsthe request to the knowledge-provider.Until he/she contacts the information-seeker, the identities of matched expertsremain anonymous.

Achieve Success More QuicklyThe installation of an EIP is a large under-

taking. On average, EIP launches require sixto 12 months of detailed planning andintegration work. However, Tacit can helpyou deploy Expertise Automation in justa few short weeks, with full expertisesearching capabilities available at launch.As a result, you can implement expertisetechnology while preparing your full EIPimplementation, without waiting for fullproject completion.

With expertise-location technology inplace, your EIP expands into a unified gate-way to all of your organization’s informationresources, including people. Thus, you caninstantly find answers wherever they exist inthe organization for better decision-making,enhanced service to customers, and increasedcompetitive advantage. ❚

About Tacit Knowledge Systems, Inc.Tacit is the pioneer and leader in providing Expertise

Automation solutions. Tacit’s products—KnowledgeMail® andTacit ESP for Portals—automatically and continuously inventorythe skills and talents of your entire organization.With Tacit, peoplecan instantly find and connect with the expertise they need tomake decisions, solve problems, and serve customers. Customerssuch as HP, JP Morgan, Texaco, and Morrison & Foerster are usingTacit to gain efficiency, profit, and competitive advantage. For moreinformation, visit www.tacit.com.


Power Your Portal with Real Brains

Enterprise information portals (EIPs) cando a good job of consolidating access to anorganization’s existing data and publisheddocuments. But, what happens when theanswers you’re looking for aren’t in theportal? Can you still find what you’re look-ing for, and find it in a timely way? Or, doyou revert to inefficient, ad-hoc processeslike e-mail spam to find the informationyou need?

Most organizations are using EIPs toincrease access to information and to im-prove organizational efficiency. However,the Delphi Group estimates that 42% ofcorporate knowledge remains locked insideof employees’ heads. Paper documentscomprise another 24% of corporate knowl-edge. To circumvent these limitations,companies are pushing their employeestoward publishing more of their informa-tion. This path only leads to another road-block—convincing employees to find timefor creating documents.

Easy Access to Documents and Data Isn’t Enough

The process of authoring documentsis not only time-consuming and labori-ous, but meritocratic organizations sendthe wrong message, preventing employeesfrom actively contributing their knowl-edge. Even when incentive systems arein place to motivate users to create andshare content, the information tends tobe less than complete for several funda-mental reasons:◆ It is impossible to capture the complete

context and details of any project or busi-ness issue into a document. Omitted infor-mation may not have seemed important tothe author, but could be critically impor-tant to someone else.

◆ There is a delay between the time busi-ness activities occur and the time aperson can summarize those activitiesor ideas into a document. Therefore, thevery latest development breakthroughor the most current project status willnever appear.

July/August 2001S18

By Tacit Knowledge Systems

“People are necessary to

transform information

into results. “


the Portal Lifecycle Management checklistfrom the Delphi Group white paper “TheHidden Cost of Portal Ownership.”

Plan for GrowthAs companies rush to deploy enterprise

portals, some are tempted to select a portalsolution that is based on proprietary technol-ogy because they are promised a solutionwithin days. Many soon regret the limita-tions of a closed platform and the cost ofongoing maintenance.

A vendor-neutral portal framework allowsthe integration of e-business applications anddata sources from many vendors throughreadily available connectors. The ideal frame-work provides system-to-system services forB2B integration and content aggregation, sys-tem-to-person services for portal access andmanagement, and person-to-person servicesfor web community and online collaborationapplications. XML mapping tools and openAPI’s should be provided for integratingcustom applications and data sources. Theframework should operate on a variety ofplatforms, with industry-leading Java 2Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application servers.It should provide role-based security, andenable the portal to be rendered on browsers,mobile phones and PDAs.

Produce Real CommunitiesReed’s Law says the value of the enter-

prise portal grows exponentially with the

number of people who effectively use it.Community applications can help identifyexpertise, coach a new user, share knowl-edge, and reward customer loyalty. Whilemany of these applications are availabletoday, they exist as point solutions. Havingperson-to-person services built into theportal server provides the infrastructure toproduce real communities of purpose.These online communities share severalmeasurable characteristics:

1. Is there a necessary shared purposethat we accomplish together?

2. Does each member have an identity? Canwe tell who’s who, even when anonymous?

3. Are we able to share information andideas that fit our purpose?

4. Can we build trust? How do we know it’ssafe to deal with others in the community?

5. How do we form reputations? Whatlets us build status?

6. Have we created ways to work togetherin small groups?

7. Is our environment a shared space thatis appropriate for our goals?

8. Do we know who belongs in our com-munity and who doesn’t?

9. How do we govern behavior so that itsupports our shared values?10. Is there a system for exchange of ideas,knowledge, support goods, and services?11. Can we express our group identity?Are we aware of what others are doingright now?12. Do we have ways to review our historyand track our evolution?

Portal Lifecycle Management, an openportal framework, and communities of pur-pose are three ways to maximize enterpriseportal ROI. ❚

Erick Rivas can be reached by email at [email protected]

For product information, email [email protected] or visitwww.mongoosetech.com

Maximize EnterprisePortal ROI

An enterprise portal is the most pervasiveapplication in the enterprise—it toucheseveryone and every data source. WithoutPortal Lifecycle Management, enterprise por-tals can quickly become the most complexand expensive application in the enterprise.

Reduce Development andMaintenance Costs

Enterprise portal software follows an iter-ative and incremental lifecycle similar to thatof other enterprise software—design, assem-ble, deploy, and manage. For business-criti-cal applications, most companies rely on anintegrated development environment (IDE)tied to an application framework. The IDEprovides tools and mechanisms for seamless-ly automating tasks and deliverables withineach phase of the lifecycle. To improve col-laboration, the tools are organized by role sothat a non-programmer can build displaysand assemble applications from a library ofreusable components developed separatelyby programmers. The benefits of PortalLifecycle Management are similar to thoserealized in the software engineering lifecy-cle. A portal IDE helps manage complexityin design, speeds development and deploy-ment, and reduces maintenance costs. In anenterprise portal, these benefits are amplifiedby the many display, business logic, and dataaccess components that must be maintained.The table below presents the features andbenefits of Mongoose PortalStudio™ against

By Erick Rivas, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mongoose Technology, Inc.

Erick Rivas is President andCEO of Mongoose Technology.Mongoose is setting thebenchmark for Portal LifecycleManagement - the ability to cost-effectively design,assemble, deploy, and managean enterprise portal within a single Environment.Mongoose PortalStudio™ is a visual portal authoring environment for the rapid development of customized e-business portals.Mongoose

PortalStudio Server™ is a J2EE™ and XML-based portalframework for easy aggregation and maintenance of e-business applications, and Mongoose RealCommunities!adds person-to-person services for enabling effective webcommunities and online collaboration.The company counts BEA Systems and eBay among its customers and offers its e-business solutions through OEM and consulting partnerships including Iconixx, SSI,eKnowledgeCenter and others.

Erick RivasPresident and CEO

Component-levelManagement

Library Services

Iterative DevelopmentProcess

Visual DevelopmentEnvironment

Separate Application and Presentation Logic

Enable Reuse across portals; Manage complexity;Minimize maintenance cost

Easily find reusable components; Maintain software integrity

Automate lifecycle of validation,deployment,andmodification;Simplify and accelerate maintenance

Facilitate the rapid design, assembly, deploymentand management of portals; Reduced errors withVisual validation of the portal design

High degree of personalization; Flexible development and deployment platforms

Portal components encapsulate display, business anddata access logic; Components designed then assembledwithin an integrated development environment

Role-based access to component services ;Privileges to modify,copy,or assemble components;Track dependenciesbetween components

Lifecycle process reflected in the development environment; Components reused and managed across overlapping, iterative lifecycles; Individual components modified and deployed without conflict

Development Environment Integrated with PortalFramework;Visual design masks complexity;Point-and-clickassembly of display,application logic,and data access layers

Portal components defined separately from how they aredisplayed;Information and applications presented based oncontext: user, group, roles, location, display device, etc

Delphi Criteria Benefits Mongoose PortalStudio TM

Portal Lifecycle Management Checklist

empower business users to fully utilize theinformation assets of their corporations whilegreatly increasing efficiencies.

An enterprise-strength content manage-ment system should be capable of managingthe three most common categories of content.These are:◆ Business Content. Unstructured content is

characterized by all of the operational, non-database content that drives a business.Analysts have reported that the majorityof total corporate content falls into thiscategory. Typically unstructured contentincludes text documents, images, spread-sheets, presentation materials, and may alsoinclude drawings, reports, email, video andaudio. The business purpose for movingunstructured content to an enterprise contentmanagement system is to maximize the in-formation exchange, use and reuse of thisimportant business property.

◆ Structured Content. Generally consideredthe domain of the database systems, struc-tured content also has significance to enter-prise content management systems. Asorganizations increasingly use the struc-tured information format of XML, contentmanagement systems are now expected tostore XML formatted documents and man-age XML tags as metadata, another struc-tured format. Structured content may alsobe extracted from other enterprise systems,such as ERP systems, and entered into thecontent management system. For example,

B2B catalogs are maintained by the contentmanagement system, but data for thesecatalogs is often pulled from the part de-scription housed in the ERP application.

◆ Web Content. Unstructured and structuredcontent exists independently of a web site,but may be published to one or many sites.Web content, however, is content specificto a web site, and has no useful purposeoutside of the web site. Typically, webcontent includes the output from HTMLeditors or multimedia tools, web format-ted images, and web page configurationinformation. Additional categories includeinformative and collaborative content,such as company news, joke-of-the-day,threaded discussions, community topics,and shared group folders.The successful content management im-

plementation provides end-to-end contentmanagement for these different types of con-tent, from creator to ultimate consumer. Busi-ness-critical content management applicationssuch as this require integration with authoringtools, version and workflow management,translation to web formats, web page layout,and distribution through standard, mobile, andwireless browsers.

Together, Enterprise Content Management and Enterprise Portals Increase Efficiencies

The greater the maturity of the contentmanagement implementation throughout anenterprise, the faster the enterprise portal candeliver an investment return. If the contentmanagement system can aggregate a broadrange of content, then the value of connectingthe content management system to the corpo-rate portal extends across this broad range.When the content is managed from end-to-end—from creator to consumer—and whenthe portal is involved in that end-to-end process,the portal user is able to integrate every phaseof the content lifecycle into their portal experi-ence. When IT managers find enterprise portaland content management solutions competingfor the same project dollars, they should askthemselves, “what will be the value I deliver ifI don’t have content management as part of myenterprise portal solution?” ❚

1 The Delphi Group, as reported by eCompany, May 20012 META Group, 2000.

About IntraNet SolutionsIntraNet Solutions®, Inc. (www.intranetsolutions.com), headquar-

tered in Eden Prairie,Minn.,offers Web content management solutionsfor rapid deployment of scalable business web sites.The company isrecognized by end-users and industry analysts for its ability to meetthe unique requirements of these sites and lists more than 1,500 cus-tomers worldwide on its customer roster, including Merrill Lynch, Agi-lent Technologies,Cox Communications,Sun Microsystems,Qwest Com-munications,Target,Hewlett-Packard,Yahoo! and Ericsson Telecom AB.The company has more than 475 employees and maintains officesthroughout the U.S., Europe and Australia.

Special Supplement to July/August 2001S20

Enterprise Content Management:Powering the Enterprise PortalEnterprise Portals Provide Personalized Access toInformation Assets

By Michael Rudy, Vice President of Business Development, Technology Alliances,IntraNet Solutions, Inc.

The Enterprise Portal market has gainedmomentum as customers have realized the ad-vantages of simplifying web access to thebroad range of applications that their usersaccess daily. According to the Delphi Group,60% of the world’s 2,000 largest companieseither currently have an enterprise portal orwill be building one in the next six months.1

By offering single sign-on, personalizedweb interfaces, and connectors to the mostcommon applications, enterprise portals offerconsistent, optimized access to a broad rangeof corporate information assets. These assetscan be roughly divided into two enterpriseapplication categories:◆ enterprise content◆ all other enterprise applications.

Enterprises Generate and Manage Multiple Types of Content

Concurrently, many companies havelaunched initiatives for organizing contentthroughout their enterprises. META estimatesthe content management market to total $10billion by 2004, and of this $10 billion mar-ket, $6 billion will be spent on business-to-business and business-to-employee contentmanagement. 2 Enterprise web content man-agement systems provide the means to organ-ize, approve, and publish a broad spectrum ofcontent, promoting greater leverage of a com-pany’s intellectual assets. Together, enterpriseportals and web content management systems


and even to transform themselves into newkinds of enterprises.

There’s little coincidence that the bur-geoning enterprise portal market is heating up[$1.5 billion business in 2002 according toGiga Information Group] at the same time asindustry experts claim Web Services is the nextcomputing paradigm. In fact, IDC estimates themarket for infrastructure software and servicesthat simplify integration of business processeswill approach $50 billion by 2005. METAGroup (Dec. 2000) predicts that by 2005 theportal market will evolve into the new standarduser interface built atop back-end services.

As enterprise portals increasingly becomethe Web interface, or dashboard, for controland management of Web Services, businessesmust re-consider the criteria for evaluatingenterprise portal products. To meet futurebusiness needs, enterprise portals should havean underlying structure with these four ele-ments: presentation, personalization, frame-work, and integration.

PresentationA portal’s value lies in its ability to present

desired content in a usable format. Enterpriseportals must support multi-channel accessand pervasive computing, to include accessthrough mobile devices and support for instantcommunication. The portal must deliver rich,interactive presentation layouts, such asdynamic HTML pages, and a consistent lookand feel across all applications. As an ex-ample, BenefitsCorp’s B2E portal providesaccount executives self-service access toretirement plan account data and email frommobile personal digital assistants and PCs sothat they can do their jobs more efficiently,more responsively, and more cost-effectively.

PersonalizationPersonalization not only enhances sales

effectiveness for customer-facing applica-tions, it boosts efficiency and comfort levelsamong business users. BEA WebLogic allowsbusinesses, such as Citigroup’s WorldwideSecurities Services organization, to build andintegrate content management systems andregistration applications that collect informa-tion provided explicitly by users, as well asimplicitly by tracking behavior.

IntegrationTraditional EAI, and next generation in-

tegration technologies, are vital to architectportals and back-end applications on a com-mon, standards-based platform. Enterpriseportals must integrate with myriad data-bases, ERP systems, inventory and account-ing applications, third-party systems, andWeb servers. This integration greatly reducesoperating costs and accelerates delivery ofnew applications.

FrameworkThe ultimate test of a portal is whether it

provides business users with the tools to be aseffective online as offline. IT departments candelegate administrative responsibilities to lineof business managers based on logical groupsor regions, and specified privileges. In turn,these managers establish rules-based entitle-ments for customers, partners and staff. Theresult is a set of tools that managers use to re-strict access, control behavior and encourageaction based on each person’s role.

ConclusionEnterprise portals require continuous

enhancements and additions. This requirementmeans open and flexible e-business platforms,which evolve with an organization’s needs,scale with its growth and support a broad rangeof knowledge-based and transaction-basedapplications, are a must. ❚

About BEABEA Systems (Nasdaq: BEAS) is one of the world’s leading

e-business infrastructure software companies, with more than10,000 customers around the world. BEA WebLogic E-BusinessPlatform is the de facto standard for more than 1,900 systems inte-grators, ISVs and ASPs to provide solutions that fast-track and future-proof e-businesses for high growth and profitability.Headquartered inSan Jose, Calif., BEA has 92 offices in 32 countries. Contact BEA at Tel:408-570-8000, www.bea.com, or [email protected].

Portals Unlock the Knowledge

that Drives Business Value

Enterprise portals are the primary aggrega-tion and access points that enable employees,partners, suppliers and customers to moreefficiently function and collaborate. Accord-ing to META Group (Dec. 2000 report),portals will help reduce the cost and imple-mentation time for customer relationship man-agement, commerce chain management, andemployee knowledge management strategies.These customer-focused business strategiesdrive the creation of new business value,which is key to competitive differentiation.

However, to realize this potential, businessmust shift away from traditional approachesto portal deployment, approaches that stifle in-tegration and growth. Business should adoptthe perspective of a portal environment that isdesigned and built on e-business platforms.

World-class e-business infrastructures re-quire a common portal environment and Webtransaction platform—at BEA this is knownas an e-business operating system—to helpensure seamless integration, growth withoutpain, rapid deployment, and high perform-ance. Moving away from standalone portalsand applications eliminates the risk of over-lapping functionality and the inefficienciescaused by intra-company communicationbreakdowns. Smart, efficient knowledge shar-ing can only enhance organizational perform-ance and customer value.

The Role of Enterprise Portals

History has shown us that each majorcomputing paradigm—mainframe, client/server, Internet—was accompanied by an as-sociated user interface. Mainframe computinghad scripting language, client/server comput-ing had Windows, and Internet computing hadthe Web browser. As we approach the nextcomputing paradigm—Web Services—a newinterface will be borne and evolve to harnessits power.

Web Services are designed to take advan-tage of new Internet standards for exchangingdata and facilitating dynamic communicationbetween disparate hardware systems andsoftware programs. In short, Web Servicesmake it possible to build bridges between sys-tems that otherwise would require extensivedevelopment efforts. Using a portal interface,businesses will be able to improve agility

By Robert Duffner, Director of Product Marketing, BEA Systems, Inc.

Mr.Coleman is co-founder,chairman and CEO of BEA Systems, Inc.founded in early1995.Mr.Coleman brings toBEA over 27 years of high-technology experience withparticular emphasis on softwaredevelopment.Prior to BEA, heheld various management positions at Sun Microsystems,Inc., including:founder, vicepresident, and general managerof SunIntegration Services; vice

president of system software overseeing SunOS, Solaris, and related products; and co-founder of Sun Federal, Inc.Mr.Colemanbegan his career in the U.S.Air Force as chief of satellite operationsin the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.Mr.Coleman has abachelor’s degree in computer science from the United States AirForce Academy, and a master’s degree in computer science andcomputer engineering from Stanford University.

Bill Colemanco-founder, chairman and CEO

These can either be embedded togetherinto one portal or separated, with the To-Do section on a general home Intranetpage and the My Projects portal on itsown. Avoid trying to stuff too many appli-cations or too much information into onepage, but also avoid cluttering your desk-top with too many portals. In any portal,the employee’s tasks should be automati-cally updated with changes occurring inthe workflow application.

Information Flows

Among the psychological challengesassociated with defining the rules andarchitecture of a KM solution is the need tothink in terms of information flows ratherthan corporate hierarchy. This means thatdiscussion groups, document access, andworkflow participation must be organizedin a way that reflect everyday businesspractices. An example of this principle isthat the CEO’s assistant must have nearlyequal access to company information as theCEO himself, which may give the assistantgreater information access than others inhigher positions.

Content Management in Your PortalWhen choosing a search solution, you

should first write down exactly which search

functions are critical or desired for yourcompany. Some companies may want tosearch only by meta-data; others may wantfull-text search of their files, or evensemantic search, which gives results thatare related to your search query but notnecessarily containing the keyword in thesearch. For instance, when one searchesfor “Knowledge Management” using asemantic navigator, one can find related doc-uments on portals, workflows, etc. regardlessof whether they contain the keywords“Knowledge” or “Management.”

As for other aspects of content manage-ment, one should be notified in the portalwhenever a document that concerns him/herhas been changed, updated, or archived.

Communication Functions in Your Portal

Putting one’s e-mail inbox on the homeportal is standard. However, other commu-nication tools such as chats and discussiongroups require more anticipation and analy-sis. Some companies may choose to havecompanywide discussion groups and chats,whereas others may choose to designateindividual chats and discussions for partic-ular departments, projects, or offices. It isimportant to remember that the objective ofKM is to capture and utilize information, notjust create it, so organize your free commu-nication forums in a way that is search-able and usable by your employees.

There are many ways to structure aportal, but the important themes that shouldrun throughout the portal and the overallKM solution are integration, organiza-tion, searchability, and traceability. As ageneral rule, make sure that you priori-tize and stay focused on achieving yourobjectives, without getting lost in the end-less possibilities. ❚

Special Supplement to July/August 2001S22

Corporate PortalsRequire Complete KM Strategies

By Ennov

Having previously worked withErnst & Young and SFR (a leadingtelecom company in France) in financial control positions,Emmanuel Ifrah has been the CEO of Ennov since its creation in1999.Mr.Ifrah received a M.B.A.from the H.E.C.Graduate School of Management (Paris).Ennov provides complete knowledge management solutions that focus on tight

control of corporate information and processes. The solutions combine state-of-the-art workflow and document management with powerful audit and qualityassurance modules. Ennov is releasing its corporate KMportal in 2001.

Emmanuel IfrahChief Executive Officer

Knowledge management (KM) can bedefined as content management (CM)woven into business processes. KM isintended to provide people with easy andtimely access to the right information, ina controlled and organized way. While cor-porate portals may seem like a simple wayto achieve this objective, a portal imple-mentation should be approached within thecontext of a comprehensive knowledgemanagement strategy.

Such an approach requires an elucida-tion of your short and long-term goalsand also an understanding of how the keyelements of KM, such as informationflows and content management, will fitinto your corporate portal.

Optimizing Your Processes; ShortVersus Long Term Goals

Almost anything that happens in acompany that may result in a financialloss has an associated business process: acustomer complaint, a development project,or even a travel request. KM aims to makebusiness processes easier and quicker,but also more traceable and controlled.Sometimes these goals can come into con-flict and managers must decide whetherthe short-term or long-term goals aremore important.

Take an example of a bank whoseasset managers have always respondedto back-office errors by calling or e-mail-ing downstairs to request correction. Thisis a very simple process and accom-plishes the task more quickly thanentering the error into a workflow man-agement application. However, whenthere is a problem in a large transaction,it is critical that the bank find the sourceof the error with speed and precision,and it is here that KM saves a companytime and money.

Processes in Your PortalYour portal will normally include a

To-Do list and a “My Projects” section.

“How do the key

elements of KM,

such as information

flow and content

management, fit into

your corporate portal?”


aggregating business-critical informationfrom disparate enterprise sources is dra-matically reduced.

Smarter business decision-making asenterprise knowledge is leveraged throughadvanced data aggregation, powerful searchmechanisms, and automated notification andcontent publishing based on business rules.

Stronger customer, supplier and part-ner relationships when doing businesswith your company is personal, convenientand rewarding.

User Considerations

There are several key architectural con-siderations for creating a successful enter-prise portal: user platforms and interface,infrastructure, scalability, openness, securi-ty and simplicity. Information served bythe portal needs to be accessed via a com-prehensive set of electronic touch points,including the Web, e-mail, desktop appli-cations like Office 2000, support for mobileand WAP-enabled devices, enabling the usera range of choices to access and interactwith data.

Portal technology, in and of itself, is nota panacea for the enterprise. The potentialfor top-line gains is significant, but only ifusers embrace it. The Web-induced infor-mation explosion underscores the impor-tance of providing user personalization andaccess control.

OpennessPortal technologies that support open

standards can be easily integrated into acompany’s existing infrastructure. The por-tal needs to be operating system—and webserver—neutral so that enterprises can host iton the platform of choice. Support of J2EEand .NET interfaces for integrating thebusiness logic with other backend serversare important for interoperability. It is alsoimportant that the portal software makesextensive use of XML for data-aggregationand XML-based standards like XSL/XSLTfor user-interface customization.

SecuritySecurity is a primary concern for all col-

laborative applications. It is essential thatthe portal provide ways to encrypt dataand documents sent over a public network.Optimally, the enterprise controls the filteringof information, to create “collaboration sand-boxes,” where only certain users or groupscan gain access.

ScalabilityThe current business climate and econ-

omy demands that enterprise technologyhave the capability to adapt to changes inthe user base, and integrate with the mostdemanding applications.

SimplicityParamount to fulfilling its mission-critical

role is the time it takes to deploy, manage andadminister the portal technology. A modularapproach provides the greatest flexibility forbuilding content, collaboration and com-merce functionality and adapting the level ofcomplexity as users ramp up the learningcurve and their needs grow. Out-of-the-boxuser interfaces have been designed to mini-mize user training by using familiar meta-phors, such as the Web and e-mail.

Organizations that realize now the valueof collaboration throughout the extendedenterprise will gain a competitive advantageon their competition. In the long term, how-ever, collaboration will define nearly everyaspect of global business. Collaboration willno longer be a luxury or ancillary businessfunction, but rather it will be the new corecompetency that binds the business world.Visionary organizations that embrace collab-oration as the next major phase in the busi-ness evolution of the Internet will be themarket leaders of tomorrow. ❚

iManage, Inc.iManage’s WorkSite solution provides an e-business platform and

applications that simplify and enrich business-critical collaboration workacross the value chain.iManage WorkSite drives new business efficienciesfor enterprises by empowering them to create key links amongemployees, customers, suppliers and partners.

Enterprise Portals:Powering Mission-critical Applications

By iManage, Inc.

Mr.Panjwani’s career spansmore than 15 years in executive management,software development, salesand marketing.His vision for using the Internet to harnessthe power of human capitalthrough collaboration was thegenesis for the founding ofiManage, Inc. in 1995.iManageis now a leading provider of e-business content and collaboration software platforms and applications.

Under his leadership, iManage has experienced phenomenalgrowth.In fiscal year 2000, iManage’s revenues rose 62 percent.After successfully taking the company public in November 1999,Mr.Panjwani continues to position iManage as the leader in theemerging enterprise content and collaboration marketplace.

Max PanjwaniPresident and Chief Executive

Officer, iManage

The Internet and World Wide Web have ush-ered in a business revolution, at the heart ofwhich lies a fundamental shift in the waybusiness is conducted. Despite the transfor-mations that are underway, stiff competitionis forcing businesses to implement collabora-tive business solutions that integrate internalsystems and leverage existing technology toharness the knowledge and data that residesacross the enterprise and among suppliers,partners and customers.

Web sites provided companies an entry tothe development of content and exchangesthat span the supply chain; portals offer next-generation electronic collaboration, contentand commerce. The enterprise portal is apersonalized, single point of access for theinternal and external user where the compa-ny’s Web channels come together—theInternet, intranet, extranet and marketplaceexchanges—to exploit the cumulative infor-mation, knowledge and data that will enablegreater business efficiencies.

The Portal Advantage

In its most powerful form, the corporateportal is a platform for global companies andenterprises with extensive supply chains tointegrate mission-critical applications suchas Customer Relationship Management,Supply Chain Management, eProcurement,workflow management, knowledge manage-ment, business intelligence, exchanges andeCommerce. Unifying disparate and diverseapplications, users, and information sourcesin a single environment that is personalized,efficient, and easy to use is complex, but thetop-line benefits can be enormous.

Tomorrow’s market leaders must distillmission-critical knowledge from specifictransactions and disseminate it across broad,cross-functional business processes for reuseby workers around the world. This interactive,collaborative process contributes immea-surably to the combined organizationalexpertise of the enterprise.

Productivity improvements as theamount of time spent accumulating and

For more information on any of the companies who contributed to this white paper, visit their website or contact them directly:

BEA Systems, Inc.2315 North First StreetSan Jose CA 95131Phone: 800-817-4BEA or 408-570-8000Fax: 408-570-8901E-mail: [email protected]: www.bea.com

iManage, Inc.2121 S. El Camino Real, 4th FloorSan Mateo, CA 94403Phone: 650-356-1166Fax: 650-627-8751E-mail: [email protected]: www.imanage.com

InfoImage4000 N Central Ave, #2300Phoenix AZ 85012Phone: 602-234-6900Fax: 602-234-6950E-Mail: [email protected]: www.infoimage.com

IntraNet Solutions, Inc.7777 Golden Triangle DriveEden Prairie, MN 55344Phone: 800-989-8774Fax: 952-829-5424Web: www.intranetsolutions.com/kmworld

Mongoose Technology, Inc.1300 Hercules, Suite 130Houston, TX 77058Phone: 281-461-0099Fax: 281-461-0505E-Mail: [email protected]: www.mongoosetech.com

Ennov50 Broadway, Suite 1500New York, NY 10004Phone: 212-363-6356Fax: 212-363-6862E-Mail: [email protected]: www.ennov.com

Computer Associates International, Inc.One Computer Associates PlazaIslandia, NY 11749Phone: 631-342-6000Fax: 631-342-6800Product Info: 800-225-5224Info: http://ca.com/products/info_request.htmWeb: http://ca.com/products/jasmineii_portal/

Hummingbird Communications1 Sparks AvenueToronto, Ontario M2H 2W1Phone: 77-FLY HUMMFax: 416-496-2207E-mail: [email protected]: www.hummingbird.com/kmworld

RecomMind Inc.1001 Camelia StreetBerkeley, CA 94710Phone: 510-558-7895Fax: 510-525-2351E-Mail: [email protected]: www.recommind.com

PurpleYogi, Inc.201 Ravendale DriveMountain View, CA 94043Phone: 650-988-2000Fax: 650-988-2159E-Mail: [email protected]: www.purpleyogi.com

Tacit Knowledge Systems, Inc.990 Commercial StreetPalo Alto CA 94303Phone: 650-251-2000Fax: 650-251-2010E-mail: [email protected]: www.tacit.com

Produced by:

KMWorld MagazineSpecialty Publishing Team

Citrix Systems, Inc.6400 NW 6th WayFort Lauderdale FL 33309Phone: 954-267-2463Fax: 954-267-3014

8890 McGaw RoadColumbia, MD 21045Phone: 888-820-7917Fax: 410-715-6835E-Mail: [email protected]: www.citrix.com

For information on participating in the next white paper in the “Best Practices” seriescontact [email protected]

Kathryn Rogals Paul Rosenlund Andy Moore207-338-9870 207-338-9870 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Lotus Development Corp.1 Rogers StreetCambridge, MA 02142Phone: 800-828-7086 or 617-577-8500Fax: 617-693-5562E-mail: [email protected]: www.lotus.com/km

www.kmworld.com www.infotoday.com