PortalSoftware

Last edit September 19, 2006

PortalSoftware was perceived as the NextBigThing to enhance collaboration within a company back around the turn of this century.

End of an Era - for PortalSoftware

Today, in Aug05 the last remaining significant vendor, PlumTree, is being swallowed by BEA.

Accoring to a ButlerGroup blog, recent events has been predicted years ago. Whilst one can always find an abundance of BullsEye hind-sight analysis, should people have dismissed predictions of boom/bust in specific software industries?
Jun05 PlumTree product strategy can be seen at http://portalsmag.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=6621&KeyWords=plumtree

One year ago, PlumTree CEO John Kunze said this about their product:

"We have been planning for this (ServiceOrientedArchitecture) role. Our core engine and infrastructure can consume Web services in massive scale and deploy them in massive scale to very specific audiences."
"Plumtree offers its administration and orchestration of services (also) in interactive collaborative applications."

A Gartner view of PortalSoftware dated 2004 can be seen at http://portalsmag.com/print/default.asp?ArticleID=5512

Supplanted by MicrosoftWay???

It is too much of a coincident and not long after the takeover of the "struggling" PlumTree, Microsoft is making available an "experimental" PortalSoftware start.com site at http://start.com/developer/ . This SeptemberZeroFive preview use terms like "gadgets" that are identical to ones for PlumTree addons.

Microsoft MSN developer web site suggested AjaxWebApplications possibilities and wrote:

"Start.com is now extensible, with our new AJAX framework. Go to the Start.com developer site to learn how to build your own gadgets, customize your feeds, and more."

Using portal to enhance collaboration

BigBlue has this marketing paper which could be applicable to the general topic of PortalSoftware. -> http://www-5.ibm.com/ch/lotus/pdf/portal_unleasing_value_collaborative.pdf

they suggested it is an enabling technology for OrganizationalCulturalTransformation (not just CulturalChange).