Best Practices in Enterprise Portals

Andy Moore ...... 2 Enterprise Information Portals: The Power and the Peril I read an article the other day on the subject of enterprise portals. The otherwise informative 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 Problems With less available capital, it has become imperative to make the right decisions when it comes to selecting and implementing business technologies... Nimish Mehta, PurpleYogi ...... 6 Solving Information Overload Businesspeople spend half their time looking for information. Finding it will not get any easier... Michael Loria, Lotus Development . . 8 Knowledge Management and Collaboration Contemplating the impact of email today is not unlike trying to envision a world without telephones... Jay Weir, Hummingbird ...... 10 The Burgeoning Market for Enterprise Portals Over the past two years, since Merrill Lynch coined the term, enterprise information portals (EIP) have come a long way... Michael Richtberg, Citrix Systems . . 12 Bringing Applications to the Enterprise Portal The ability to give workers ready access has become vitally important for businesses striving to be productive, agile and profitable… Dr.Thomas Hofmann, RecomMind . . 14 Making Personalized Retrieval a Reality in Knowledge Enterprises 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... Randall Eckel, InfoImage ...... 15 Using Portal Technology to Improve and Streamline Business Processes and Decision-making Today’s progressive organizations have empowered knowledge workers with front line decision-making responsibility, yet have not provided the tools. As a result, they are empowered but not fully informed... Robert Bolds,Computer Associates . . 16 Enterprise Information Portals: Portals in Puberty Remember that awkward time in your life when you suddenly underwent a lot of unexpected changes that affected just about every aspect of your life...? Tacit Knowledge Systems ...... 18 Power Your Portal with Real Brains EIPs do a good job of consolidating access to an organization's existing data and published documents. But, what happens when the answers you're looking for aren't in the portal... Erick Rivas, Mongoose Technology. . 19 Maximize Enterprise Portal ROI Enterprise Portals are being deployed as an integral part of many businesses, so why aren't they managed as any other business critical software...? Michael Rudy, IntraNet Solutions . . 20 Enterprise Content Management: Powering the Enterprise Portal The Enterprise Portal market has gained momentum as customers realize the advantages of 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 Value Enterprise 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 Strategies Knowledge management can be defined as content management woven into business processes, with easy and timely access to the right information in a controlled and organized way... iManage...... 23 Enterprise Portals: Powering Mission-critical Applications The Internet and World Wide Web have ushered in a business revolution, at the heart of which lies a fundamental shift in the way business is conducted...

Sponsored by

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 Andy Moore is an editor by profession and temperament, having held senior editorial Enterprise and publishing positions for more than two decades. As a publication editor, Moore most recently Information Portals: was editor-in-chief and co-publisher of KMWorld Andy Moore (formerly ImagingWorld) Editor Magazine.Moore now acts as a contract editorial The Power and the Peril consultant and conference designer. As KMWorld's Specialty Publishing Editorial Director,Moore acts 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 white papers in the series. By Andy Moore, Editorial Director,KMWorld Specialty Publishing

I read an article the other day on the sub- Portals emerged, practically from grass- tion question. As is traditional, the writers ject of enterprise portals. The otherwise roots, as information workers learned strained for metaphors from daily life to informative and interesting piece featured (quickly, those clever buggers) to cop ideas describe complex technologies: “A portal a graphic of a bottle labeled “Portal— from their home-consumer faves (such as is like a door ...”; “A portal is a kind of The All-In-One Solution.” The implica- My Yahoo!) and apply them to their work- gatekeeper”; “A portal is like the dash- tion, I suppose, is that portal technolo- place information view, “beginning life as board of a ‘64 Chevy Impala.” gies should be viewed dubiously, as one a consumer application before business would a traveling salesman’s flim-flam ... began to perceive its value,” as The Delphi a sort of snake-oil grift preying on the Group puts it. hayseed rube technology buyer that stakes Then, something not completely typical his future on the next big buzzword . . . happened: business DID begin to perceive What a load of crap. the value hidden in portals. Remember, at There are so many things wrong with that the time the management books and mag- “People want illustration that it’s practically libelous. azines were all talking about collabora- I can tell you this: Portals—Enterprise tion, frictionless information access, Information Portals, to be formal—are knowledge management, etc., so it’s easy portals. More the most uniquely democratic technology to imagine the reasoning that led to development that I’ve ever witnessed. Why? attempts—still ongoing attempts—to create Because portals were never imposed. the business equivalent of MyYahoo! in to the point— Nobody ever said: “Today, let them eat your own backyard. portal.” And do you want to know why? “Creating portals is a good first step in Because people want portals. They truly leveraging unstructured information,” says YOUR people do. More to the point ... YOUR people Nimish Mehta, CEO of PurpleYogi. “The want portals. problem is how do you use it, maintain it, Granted, there’s a substantial amount of keep it current.” Creating a business want portals.” marketingship at work, but it’s unfair to MyYahoo! is a pretty good rough diagram drape such a valuable and clever advance- for a business plan, but it’s a long way ment with such a thoughtless cloak. There’s from there to complete solution. And what greatness and there’s guile here, and we we have learned from compiling this need to understand the difference. And that’s White Paper on Enterprise Information why we are publishing this collection of Portals is: we ain’t there yet. If a portal is a door, it’s not a very darn positions and practices. good one. Doors keep things out and Mission Impossible restrict access from both sides. If a portal When it Works,It Works IS a door, it better be a screen door that In business, knowledge is an extreme allows the free ventilation of content to “The purpose of portals is to lever- sport. Providing the gear for such danger- pass both ways, filtered, maybe, but only age existing applications into a better ous play is not for the timid. The chal- slightly restricted. The difficult trick, as view, one that is familiar to people,” re- lenge for portal vendors is not so much Mehta points out, is to make certain that minds Bob Kruger, VP and Chief Tech- “what is a portal?” but “what ISN’T a the filter understands the needs of the nology Officer of Citrix, a professional portal?” It’s amusing to read some of the worker, and adjusts to keep the good stuff services goliath that recently acquired “early literature” (we’re talking 1998 coming in, but avoids creating an “infor- Sequoia Software. here) while it tried to deal with the defini- mation landfill.”

S2 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 If a portal is a gatekeeper, you can keep it. The last thing a rapid organization needs is a traffic cop. And as for the Chevy Impala ... I made that one up. I just had one of those once, and I miss it. (Although, now that I think about it, smarter people than me have tried “In business, knowledge is an to strain that dashboard metaphor.) Speaking of strained metaphors: “It is as if the user is at the doorstep of a great extreme sport.” library with well-indexed catalogs and colorful signs to help her find anything she wants, but what’s the point if she has ...not for the timid. no idea what to look for or how to apply what’s ‘out there’ to the task at hand. That’s where portals fail today—they dump you in front of a flood of resources without helping you figure out what to do with them!” —Kumar Nochur Kumar is a buddy of mine who is not 20% of our structured and unstructured “visionaries”; those who have the ability only a Ph.D., but is also smart. Kumar has information is Web-ready.” Wow. This is to achieve the long view of their goals, developed KM and decision-support soft- SUN we’re talking about, for cryin’ out and better than half a chance to pull it off. ware to help people get more leverage loud, and they are as darkly prepared as One of my favorite canned questions to from their corporate portals. And as you the rest of us when it comes to presenting ask during the interviews for this paper was: read this White Paper, you’ll discover that information to users, partners and the pub- “Are portals for delivery or discovery?” most of the vendors in this space are doing lic. Add to this: context-sensitive informa- Provocative question, I learned. It’s a matter something similar, i.e., trying to improve tion requirements; revolving workforces; of philosophy for most, but cuts to the core of existing offerings by enhancing the “back- misaligned IT infrastructures; and just many portal products out there. What I found end” or the “front-end” or the “middle-ware” plain screw-ups. out: We are now at a threshold. Portals are or some damn thing. “With multiple information and appli- beyond the first-gen Yahoo knock-offs that And I can’t help thinking ... “Why do I cation sources, cycles get long in an enter- allow a level of personalization that is as need a Ph.D. and another product? Why can’t prisewide solution,” warns Sequoia’s Bob rudimentary as Model-Ts were black, but not I just buy a portal that does the job, and let’s Wesker. This long cycle time has created quite the sensitive and aware helpmates they get on with it?” I mean, I’ve already owned what Delphi terms an “unanticipated cost are made out to be. Not yet. up to the knowledge-sharing problem, and center.” Not what most executives want The best answer to my “delivery or dis- I bought the information-overload thing to hear when they sign up for a solution. covery” question was from Bob Kruger of and I think there’s something to this New But it’s ultimately the moving-target nature Citrix , whose answer was basically, Who Economy stuff, so how come my problems of the beastly thing that is the problem. cares?: “How about both? When you’re just get worse??? PurpleYogi’s CEO Nimish Mehta summarizes dealing with information at this level, it’s “A portal,” says Bob Wesker, CEO of the challenge this way: “As companies grow, much more fundamental than push or pull. Sequoia Software, “is supposed to know they evolve ... things change. Portals must be Why should it matter? What matters is how what you don’t know.” adaptable to the concept drift that occurs as you want to operate. Then it’s up to the Whoa. THAT'S the challenge for the businesses progress.” software to be adaptable.” vendors and those who deploy enterprise “Concept drift.” Great term, but an Software that’s adaptable. But to what? portals—a portal has to do the impossible, even greater problem for information To the organization’s perceived require- and that's why it's so difficult! delivery systems. It’s bad enough when ments? To the whim of the worker? To a merger or acquisition forces a seismic fluid and immense universe of data sources, Where Are We Anyway? change onto a workforce. It’s easy to pre- as near as your desktop and as remote as dict the turmoil that results from that. But the Web? The Delphi Group is as—totally de- what about the subtle micro-quakes at That’s what we set out to learn with this servedly—respected an analyst group as every desk in your company that quietly White Paper. The answers herein are con- you’ll ever find. They have fresh research and irreversibly alter the momentum of sistent: Portals are pretty easy to under- that shows that business portal software your progress, every minute of every day? stand and pretty difficult to execute. Their sales, which reached $407 million in 2000, Can there be a fixed solution for such a power is in the details, and the details can will continue its high-double-digit-growth slippery condition? be elusive and complex. Read on. ❚ through to 2003 and, I guess, beyond. That’s what the companies represented But they are also quick to caution that in this White Paper talk about every day. As the total cost of ownership in enterprise recently as this spring, the Gartner Group Andy Moore has often been a well-known presence in the emer- portals hides a severe iceberg effect, mean- tracked about 25 companies that have a gence of new technologies, from independent telecommunications through networking and information management. Most recently, ing there’s a BUNCH of stuff that doesn’t play to make in the portal marketplace, and Moore has been pleased to witness first-hand the decade's most sig- meet the eye. And you don’t have to be ranked them according to their relative nificant business and organizational revolution:the drive to leverage Leonardo DiCaprio to understand what status among their peers. For the record, organizational knowledge assets (documents, records, information that means. Gartner listed exactly none of them as and object repositories) and the expertise and skill of the organiza- On a recent syndicated business TV show, “leaders,” or even “challengers” to take a tions' knowledge workers in order to create true learning organiza- Sun Microsystems’ CEO Scott McNealy heads-above-the-crowd position in the tions.He can be reached at [email protected] and welcomes feedback admitted that “somewhere between zero and marketplace. But the field was filled with and conversation.

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S3 Linking disparate data sources and systems makes it necessary to rely on a Using a Portal to Solve common language or framework for an effective portal solution. XML has leapt to the forefront in this area because of its flexibility and cross-platform communi- Business Problems cation capabilities. Essentially, a good portal should offer several important features and functions. To summarize, these are: ◆ adaptability to changes in business pro- By Mark Wesker, President & COO,Sequoia Software 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- tight economy, disappointing corporate daily basis, and the portal would deliver A cated rules evaluation; earnings, a wildly fluctuating stock mar- that data in a meaningful way, based upon ◆ ket—we’re living and working in turbulent the employee’s role in the organization. integration of people into the portal’s times. With less available capital for invest- This type of portal could truly affect pro- design and functionality—after all, a portal serves people; ments, it has become imperative to make ductivity by streamlining a user’s interac- ◆ the right decisions when it comes to select- tion with back-end data. The story is get- scalability to enable the addition of ing and implementing business technolo- ting more compelling, but what about the users, servers, processes, and transac- gies. One technology that has the potential to business problems that a portal is supposed tions—all at high performance levels; and maximize investment return by leveraging to solve? ◆ existing systems is the portal. This is where next generation portals easy administration and configuration. However, most portals aren’t imple- come in. These portals speak to business Sequoia’s portal software, XPSª, built from the ground up around XML messag- mented just because it would be nice to have problems by offering advanced features ing, makes it possible to access informa- centralized access to data, but because it is that enable B2B transactions and automate tion from disparate data sources and pres- mission-critical to access the information, business processes. Organizations are now ent it via a personalized user interface. As automate a business process or connect with turning portals outward as a means of en- processes and partnerships evolve, XPS can customers, partners and suppliers. The fact hancing relationships with customers and quickly incorporate these changes so that that portals can solve pressing business partners. Many organizations see this type companies within the virtual enterprise problems that speak to the bottom and top of portal functionality as the cornerstone can effectively collaborate and exchange lines makes for compelling reasons to inves- of an e-business strategy that emphasizes tigate portal solutions. information. This makes XPS an ideal automating and streamlining business pro- tool that grows with organizations that cesses, and increasing an organization’s speed initially require a corporate portal or those What is a Portal— of execution. that need to connect virtual enterprise busi- One of the portal’s strengths is connect- ness partners. And What is a Good Portal? ing a company’s decision-makers with its network of suppliers, customers, and part- In its earliest incarnation, Merrill Lynch ners. Users gain quick and easy access to defined the enterprise information portal Real Problems, Real Solutions, (EIP) as “a single gateway to personal- information, and its presentation can be Real Benefits ized information needed to make informed customized to meet each person’s unique business decisions.” These early portals needs. This type of portal solution allows The proliferation of packaged applica- were predominantly internally facing, in- the rapid integration of complex, cross- tions—such as ERP, supply chain manage- tended to increase employee productivity by enterprise business processes so the flow ment, and customer relationship manage- reducing the effort required to find and of information can be easily automated ment—has made integrating enterprise- obtain crucial information. The business between organizations and their partners. wide data increasingly difficult. The rapid driver behind EIPs was that speeding the The value proposition is clear—by connect- increase in mergers and acquisitions has access to up-to-date, accurate, pertinent in- ing resources with those of partners, stream- left many companies with highly discon- formation would increase employee pro- lining processes, and addressing common nected IT infrastructures, impeding the ductivity by reducing the time spent search- critical issues, companies can deliver value seamless flow of information needed for ing for information. This still remains a and reduce inefficiencies across the entire maximum efficiency. Meanwhile, the pace laudable objective, but it is not always a value chain. of today’s business environment demands compelling enough reason for investing This increased efficiency and focus on that information be readily available to precious IT dollars into a portal solution. communication afforded by the portal en- ensure smart and fast decision-making. However, these initial portals were ables a company to create a “virtual enter- The abundance of content, both inside successful, and inspired users and imple- prise” where key production steps are out- and outside the enterprise, has made find- menters to find new levels of portal func- sourced to partners. Many organizations ing the right information increasingly diffi- tionality and utility. The concept of per- are implementing a corporate portal first cult. Employees often spend more time sonalization grew to encompass more than and are then growing this solution into looking for the right piece of information just access to personal information (such more of a B2B portal. By using a portal to than actually using it, resulting in high frus- as HR and benefits data) to include access tie in back-end enterprise systems, a com- tration and low productivity. Further inef- to corporate information that is presented pany can manage the complex interactions ficiencies are found in the continued reliance in a personalized fashion. Users could of the virtual enterprise partners through on paper processes, manual approvals, and easily access the data they required on a all phases of the value and supply chain. long transaction cycles.

S4 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 The product’s open, XML-pure archi- Waste Management selected XPS for its tecture also allows for additional function- corporate portal needs. Once the environ- “What about the business ality to be snapped in as needed. Finally, ment was secure and stable, the product the solution’s scalability ensures the por- was deployed in just a few weeks and the tal will be able to accommodate a growing employees were quickly accessing the in- problems that a portal user/information base while providing secure formation they needed to do their jobs. and reliable access. Example: The EMI Group is using XPS is supposed to solve? to automate its Digital Release Man- Maximize Your IT Investments agement process—the workflow of digi- By offering a full range of e-business This is where next- tal assets associated with the creation of components within one package, XPS an album. Like most companies in the gives companies the right mix of function- music industry, EMI’s various work de- ality at a reasonable price. By integrating generation portals partments rely on disparate databases for information from disparate back-end sys- their information. Users frequently caused tems and automating business processes, delays in the process, often re-keying data XPS allows an organization to leverage its come in.” to transfer information across departments existing technology investments. This is a and failing to meet the established release cost-effective way for an organization to date for albums. XPS aggregated disparate focus on its core competency and increase applications and databases and stream- collaboration with vital partners, customers XPS can address each of these common lined the entire approval process. EMI and suppliers. business problems, while also providing was able to leverage its existing process- additional benefits. es and applications and keep its business model intact. A Flexible,Quick Solution Work Smarter and Faster Example: Information exchange is criti- No matter what the specific business cal for those companies who elect to oper- problem driving a portal implementation, The goal of any portal is to get the right ate in a virtual enterprise and outsource it is important to choose a solution that information to the right user at the right their non-core activities to contract manu- adapts quickly and easily to the existing time. XPS intelligently accesses informa- facturers such as Flextronics. Flextronics environment. A major factor in consider- tion from back-end systems, delivers it is using XPS to pull together information ing a portal is to leverage existing tech- through a personalized interface, and allows from its various systems—from plant- nologies by integrating them so they act as users to interact with the data—from any- floor statistical process control systems one system, even though they might be where at any time. The immediate avail- to master production schedules located in technically and geographically disparate. ability of meaningful information, pre- an ERP system—into a single point of Very few portal software products offer this sented the way users need to see it, results access though which Flextronics and its type of flexibility, and because it is based in smarter and faster decision-making, and customers can view, update, and act on in XML, XPS offers the most flexibility ultimately a more responsive and competi- the information. Customers are alerted of all. tive organization. when potential problems such as compo- Any organization that wants to improve Example: The Mills Corporation, a real nent shortages become evident, and they access to information within and across the estate investment trust that owns, devel- are better equipped to respond to urgent enterprise, streamline and automate busi- ops, leases, manages and markets 12 retail situations. XPS also provides the flexi- ness processes, and manage the complexi- and entertainment destinations, is using bility to bring on new business partners rap- ties of a virtual enterprise should consider Sequoia’s XPS to compress the amount idly and efficiently into the Flextronics’ Sequoia Software’s portal solution. of time it takes to sign a new tenant. They network in a repeatable, reliable and scal- use the product to collaborate, discuss able process. changes to documents, and work with Sequoia Software business partners online. This eliminates a Get Started Quickly large portion of the cost formerly spent on As the leading provider of XML-pure sending documents overnight between XPS offers more robust functionality portal software, Sequoia Software (Nasdaq: Mills Corp. lawyers, future tenants, and out-of-the-box than any portal application. SQSW) is redefining what portals do for their lawyers. Rather than spending time on a lengthy business. Sequoia’s adaptable software Streamlining the process of signing up implementation and complex customiza- brings together information, processes, tenants ultimately shortens the collection tions, companies can be up and running and people and strengthens relationships period for receiving lease payments and gets quickly with a complete portal. The prod- throughout the value chain. The versatility cash in Mills’ pockets faster. uct’s powerful features, flexible architec- of Sequoia’s XPS allows companies oper- ture, and out-of-the-box functionality reduce ating in a virtual enterprise to more effec- Work Your Way implementation time, and limit disruption to tively collaborate, work smarter and faster, daily work activities. and maximize their IT investments. Sequoia XPS adapts to an organization’s exist- Example: Waste Management, Inc, the has an international customer base, includ- ing business processes without forcing premier company in North America provid- ing General Electric, Eastman Chemical, changes to the business model. It also can ing comprehensive waste management Flextronics, SC Johnson, Rock-Tenn, continue to adapt over time. As processes service, wanted a portal that would provide Waste Management, BBC, and Lehman and partnerships evolve, the product will critical information to its employees (such Brothers. For more information, please call quickly incorporate these changes so that as CEO and industry news, access to a doc- 888-820-7917. companies within the virtual enterprise ument management system, information on Note: On May 1, 2001 Citrix Systems, Inc. can effectively collaborate and exchange important events, employee directory, etc.) acquired Sequoia Software. As of this date, information. but wouldn’t take that long to implement. Sequoia Software assumed the Citrix name. ❚

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S5 Nimish Mehta,President and CEO of PurpleYogi, Solving information overload joined the company in March,2001,with more than 20 years of experience in executive management of global software businesses. By Nimish Mehta, President and CEO,PurpleYogi,Inc. Mehta most recently served as president and CEO of Nimish Mehta President and CEO Impresse Corp.,an enterprise EVP at one investment bank described its software developer and Business people now spend half their provider of collaborative time looking for information. And finding intranet as “an information landfill.” A man- marketing solutions.Previously Mehta served as senior it will not get any easier—the volume of aging director at another worried about VP of the Industry & Front Office Applications Division of corporate data doubles each year while the whether “people will be able to meaningfully Oracle Corporation,where he oversaw all product development public Web grows by over seven million access” the 600,000 documents in its docu- and marketing for the front office and vertical markets.His pages a day. To tame this flood, companies ment management system. proven track record in scaling software businesses and spend billions of dollars on software de- managing operations will be a key factor in PurpleYogi’s signed to give their employees better access A Crucial but Underserved Business Need continued momentum in the marketplace. to the information they need. Such invest- ments in enterprise portals, document man- Only automating the process of organ- agement systems, and text retrieval tech- izing corporate information will allow nology give companies better ways to business people to find what they need. present information. Intranets, content management systems, But such solutions are only as good as and search engines work much more effec- An ideal solution would automate all the organization of the content within them. tively when they rest on a foundation of three tasks while allowing human judgment Eighty-five percent of corporate information organized information. Building such a to guide the process when appropriate. and an even higher percentage of public foundation, based on a consistent and First-generation classification solutions web content is unstructured, and this infor- customized framework, helps businesses have failed to address the first, and most ex- mation is difficult to organize. Keyword recoup their investments in these tech- pensive, task: building an information hier- search has real limitations, as anyone who nologies faster. archy. As a result, their customers must has sorted through a lengthy list of search Automated classification involves three depend entirely on human labor to identify the results can attest. As volume increases, tasks: concepts important to their business, organize manual tagging of unstructured information ◆ Building a customized hierarchy for infor- them into a framework, and flesh out that quickly breaks down due to its expense mation; framework by assembling training documents and inconsistency. ◆ Classifying documents quickly and accu- or building classification rules. These set-up Without structure around information, rately into this hierarchy; and costs are significant: eight employees of a syn- workers struggle to locate what they need ◆ Presenting documents based on these dication company spent four months building despite all the money spent to help them. An classifications as users need them. a modest hierarchy of 400 concepts within one common classification solution. Soft- ware purchased to save employee time can itself consume thousands of employee hours. What’s worse, these systems either entire- ly exclude human input from the classifica- tion process—as statistical classification systems do—or force every single detail of classification to be painstakingly designed by human beings—as rule-based systems do. In the first case, administrators struggle to understand their expensive “black boxes,” unable to control their behavior. In the latter, administrators suffer under the heavy burden placed 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 the process.

Automated Hierarchy Building Reduces Set-up Costs Setting up first-generation classifica- tion systems can be costly and time-con- S6 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 suming, as both the design of the concept hierarchy and the assembly of the training documents or keyword rules are left en- tirely to human labor. Yet these processes are key to the eventual performance of “Automated classification technology the solution. PurpleYogi addresses this problem by partially automating the hierarchy-building brings intranets to life, turning what process. By analyzing a sample set of doc- uments, a PurpleYogi Discovery Systemª was a passive display medium and filing builds a customized concept hierarchy without any human intervention in a few hours (depending on the size of the sam- system into a dynamic tool that responds to ple). Its proprietary algorithms group docu- ments into natural categories and then or- the changing needs of a corporation and ganize these categories into a hierarchy. In this way, the underlying structure of the information manifests itself, saving its employees.” much human effort. Using PurpleYogi soft- ware tools, non-technical people edit this initial hierarchy, combining, splitting, adding, and deleting concepts and docu- ments as desired. The resulting hierarchy, Multiple Classification Methods and partners are being served, and what they with representative documents already res- Increase Accuracy should do to increase revenue and profits. ident in each node, gets a classification And they will save time and minimize rework system up and running immediately. Any given classification technology by finding what they need quickly within the Alternately, customers can launch their has its strengths and weaknesses. Statistical vast quantity of information available both system with one of several reference hier- classifiers, for example, are good at detect- inside and outside the company. archies, containing up to 12,000 concepts, ing the general subject matter of documents A variety of IT systems can benefit that PurpleYogi has customized for indi- (“software industry,” “operating systems”), from integration with a classification sys- vidual industries. while rule-based technology is better at tem, including: discriminating between concepts at finer ◆ Department-level document management levels of detail (“Microsoft Windows systems (e.g., Microsoft SharePoint); Human Input Tailors the System XP”). Conversely, any solution that relies ◆ Enterprise-scale document management to a Company’s Needs on a single classification technique will systems (e.g., Documentum); fail to classify all documents with consis- ◆ Enterprise portals (e.g., Plumtree); Maintaining a classification system is tent accuracy. ◆ challenging. Concepts change meaning But systems that combine multiple classi- Content management systems (e.g., over time as technology and business prac- fication techniques can transcend the limi- Interwoven); tices evolve—documents about “micropro- tations of any single technique. By classi- ◆ Search engines (e.g., Inktomi); cessor design,” for example, are very dif- fying a document in multiple ways and ◆ CRM applications (e.g., Siebel); and ferent today from what they were five then comparing the results, these systems ◆ ERP applications (e.g., SAP). years ago. And new concepts arise all the can achieve greater accuracy. Discovery The ability to better organize and display time: the newly-inaugurated “George W. Systems employ both statistical and rule- unstructured content either directly improves Bush administration” suddenly needed to based classifiers, as well as other propri- or complements all these applications. track news about the “California power etary techniques. And they use the structure The next generation of automated classifi- crisis.” Only human judgment can decide of the underlying concept hierarchy to pres- cation technology will include automated whether and how the classification system ent information grouped by topic instead of set up, the ability to apply human judgment should deal with such changes. in a flat list. According to researchers from when desired, and the integration of multiple For this reason, we at PurpleYogi believe the University of California-Berkeley classification techniques. While enterprises that classification systems should allow and Microsoft, people find information have spent billions to address the problem of as much—or as little—human input into 50% faster when it is presented in this way. information overload, the promise of these IT classification as is desired. A set of GUI solutions will go unfulfilled without a power- software tools allows Discovery System The Benefits ful way to organize, classify, and present in- administrators to monitor system perform- formation. Only automated classification will ance, tweak the definition of a given The next generation of classification sys- turn the abundance of information from a concept, add and delete concepts, and tems will help enterprises address the prob- curse to a blessing. ❚ even alter the classification of an indi- lem of information overload. Automated clas- vidual document. With tools to adjust sification technology brings intranets to life, system performance, human administra- turning what was a passive display medium About PurpleYogi, Inc. tors can balance efficiency and control, and filing system into a dynamic tool that PurpleYogi creates software that automatically organizes, classifies selecting the optimal mix of automation responds to the changing needs of a corpora- and manages unstructured information.PurpleYogi allows enterprises to create an information hierarchy of the concepts important to their and human intervention. (See the accom- tion and its employees. When information business,classify internal and external information into this hierarchy and panying diagram for an illustration.) In moves from where it is created and travels proactively deliver information to the people who need it. PurpleYogi this way, human judgment supplements around networks freely and effortlessly, solutions are applicable across a range of industries including profession- machine efficiency when desired and employees can know more about what is hap- al services, financial services, and high-technology firms. For more vice versa. pening in their business, how their customers information,visit http://www.purpleyogi.com.

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S7 Michael Loria is vice president of marketing strategy for Knowledge Management knowledge management at Lotus Development Corp.,an IBM Company. Michael has held various marketing and business and Collaboration development positions with Internet infrastructure,imaging Michael Loria and enterprise software Vice President companies,and has extensive Marketing Strategy experience in the document By Michael Loria, Vice President Marketing Strategy, Knowledge Management Group, management,imaging and Lotus Development Corp. workflow industry. In addition to marketing,Michael's extensive background includes business development,acquisitions,divestitures and strategic alliances with leading companies.Additionally,he has worked Contemplating the impact of email today more promise—but sends us back to the with Lotus in the development of the Lotus Notes Document is not unlike trying to envision a world drawing board. Imaging program and with IBM's ImagePlus program. without telephones. Everybody has at least Discussion groups and mail create an Recognized as a pioneer in the document imaging and one, uses it often and considers it a primary opportunity for employees in an organization management marketplace,Michael speaks at industry events means by which to connect and communi- to “volunteer” their information. Several around the globe.Michael earned his bachelor's degree in cate. What we have all come to embrace is challenges still persist: Business from Saint John Fisher College. that email provides a ubiquitous means for ◆ How are we sure that a person’s “volun- individuals to communicate directly with teered” information is the best knowledge one or more people. in the organization? Email, however, does not eliminate some ◆ Who is the best person we should proac- of the same cultural and communication tively seek out on this topic? problems that exist with telephone communi- ◆ If this document is the best coverage of context of business operations, the signif- cation. Email generally requires that the par- this topic should we involve its author? icance is very apparent: ties know each other and that they directly ◆ Indeed, how do I know this is our most ◆ We have just received a claim against our initiate conversations. The knowledge of who useful document on this topic? patents in Germany. Who is our best to include in emails requires that those in- ◆ What relevant information exists beyond authority on German patent law? volved have some external knowledge of the our organization on this topic? ◆ We need to respond to this RFP by the end relationships and skills of the parties. Fundamental questions persist with of the week. Who should we put on this Collaborative computing takes us a respect to having the confidence that the best team to ensure that we take our best shot? quantum step forward, by not only thread- information and the best people are involved ◆ We must have encountered this problem ing discussions, providing some persistence in discussions and decision making. Of before! Do we have anyone who has any and context, but by allowing these discus- course when these questions are made in the experience with this problem in the field? sions to take place in a more “public” forum. These discussions allow others, not initially included in the “distribution list,” to join discussions where they feel they can con- tribute to the conversation. This is the first Users view of the Strategic Benefits of KM step in the corporate utilization of “organi- (responses greater than 50%) zational knowledge”. An organization can now provide a platform for collaboration through messaging.

“Collaborative computing takes us a quantum step forward.“

Volunteers vs.Experts So now organizations can utilize their networks to share information, and em- Source: Lotus Research, KM Demand and Usage Survey of 667 KM Users and Considerers, IT and LOB decision makers, ployees can join discussions to share their SM&L Businesses in NA (US & Canada), LA (Brazil), Europe (France & Germany) and Asia Pacific (Japan, China, experience and knowledge. So are we done? Australia) Ð Aug Ð Oct 2000 As with most technology advances, another vision is soon created that provides even

S8 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 During the course of a given day many such questions go unanswered. These gaps in knowledge end up in many cases as gaps The Building Blocks in performance, missed deadlines, inferior answers, rework, and reinvention. Expertise Tracking Research we have done at Lotus bears this Collaborate out. Knowledge Management users identified the following reasons for their strategic in- vestment in Knowledge Management.

The Technology Piece-parts Community Building A number of technologies have emerged to focus on providing solutions to many of Search the problems encountered by organizations. These technologies provide the foundation for collaborative knowledge management. At a broad level they are: Workflow ◆ Document Management ◆ Workflow ◆ Collaboration Documents These technologies have gone main- stream to the extent that organizations generally understand the value proposi- tion of each of them, can identify and describe problems they solve, and the products meet the promise they articu- tionally, search is not just the simple match- late. Taken individually each of these tech- ing of indexed items that meet a given nologies provides value to organizations. search criteria but the retrieval, ranking However, taken together, organizations can and evaluation of the relationship of the truly begin to discover the knowledge with- content and context in which those docu- “It is the focus on in their organizations. ments were created and used. Additionally search is not limited to documents but to the “experts” that creat- The Quest for Knowledge Discovery ? ed and used them. Being able to tie the context that is Context is Key activities of individuals to searchable topics Collaborative Knowledge Management is the foundation for the organization to truly takes this foundation of messaging col- find their experts. fundamental laboration and document sharing and cre- Lastly, adaptability is key. With virtu- ates a platform for the discovery of knowl- ally every interaction within an organiza- edge—the identification of the experience, tion, every retrieval of a document, every to knowledge experts, learnings, and “prior art” of the discussion thread, the knowledge map of organization. the organization changes. Therefore the The common theme is the integration relevancy and utility of documents and discovery.” of the people, the activities, and the docu- people are re-ranked to reflect these in- ments—to provide not only the content but teractions and key to identifying the con- the context in which they were created and text in which the information is created shared. It is this focus on context that is and used. fundamental to knowledge discovery. To establish context, knowledge discovery communication—both instantly and through must address: Collaborative Knowledge Management community building. ◆ Taxonomy As companies face the challenges of The promise of collaborative knowl- ◆ Search doing more with less, getting to market edge management is one of confidence. faster, driving customer satisfaction to ◆ Adaptability Confidence that decisions are being made by higher levels—the attention turns to the Taxonomy creation allows an organiza- the most experienced people in the organ- assets that enable employees to do their jobs tion to essentially inventory “what they ization, that prior activities and projects more efficiently. Collaborative Knowledge know.” By being able to “spider” existing are available as a resource and point of Management is designed specifically to meet knowledge bases (Web sites, document reference, and that the documents being these challenges. ❚ repositories, email attachments, etc.) or- shared do indeed represent those of the ganizations create a framework for knowl- highest utility. By implementing a collab- edge sharing. The inventory and relation- orative knowledge management system, Michael Loria oversees Lotus’ marketing ship of documents and other unstructured organizations do gain the maximum lever- strategy for Knowledge Management. This in- data are essential to establishing compre- age of their “experts.” First by identifying cludes products such as the recently intro- hensive content and context. those individuals with relevant capabilities, duced Knowledge Discovery System (KDS). Search enables people to query both skills and knowledge, and second by provid- He can be reached at michael_loria@lotus. within the organization and beyond. Addi- ing computing services for engagement and com and welcomes feedback and comments.

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S9 tions are testing the waters—and in part to scalability issues. That is, current portals The Burgeoning Market simply can’t handle the volume of traffic required to roll them out to hundreds of thousands of customers and employees. But that is changing—fast. for Enterprise Portals Next-Generation Portals Analysts estimate that within two years, portals may be the business-computing platform. Outlined below are are some of By Jay Weir, Product Marketing Manager,Hummingbird EIP,Hummingbird Ltd. the probable EIP deployments: Large-scale Deployment: The evolution of portal deployments into much larger implementations that accommodate tens and hundreds of thousands of users. Over the past two years, since Merrill developing best practices, enhance CRM Customer and Partner Facing: B2B and Lynch coined the term, enterprise informa- efforts, or increase collaborative efforts via a B2C initiatives will be added to the current tion portals (EIP) have come a long way. portal. Regardless, certain departments want inward-facing deployments. While some of the early promise of the portal to begin leveraging some of the benefits Global Focus: EIP deployments on a business computing platform has yet to be of portals. global and enterprise scale will replace realized, the growth of the market for enter- Regional Focused: In large organizations regionally focused ones. prise portals has been astounding. From an especially, portals are being rolled out on The “Super Portal”: One problem we’re emerging market value of about $1 billion in a regional basis. Big companies might roll creating for ourselves by rolling portals out 1999, analysts estimate a potential of between out portals to their east coast-based oper- today on a regional and departmental basis is $7 and $10 billion by 2005. Enthusiastic ations and have a completely separate portal that we’re using all kinds of portals. It’s not market predictions aside, actual deployment for their west coast facilities. The portal is rare for a large organization to work with and functionality of enterprise portals are being used to address regional problems of three or more different portal vendors, in advancing at equally impressive rates. information access, management and appli- separate regions or departments. The notion Enterprise portals have evolved from cation integration. of the Federated Portal is emerging—por- what can be thought of as a spruced up My Intranet Amalgamation: Again, as dis- tals that are capable of amalgamating differ- Yahoo! or MSN for the business user, to cussed earlier, many organizations see portals ent portals. As portals are used today to amal- implementation as a means of amalgamat- as a way of combining their intranets. Mar- gamate intranets, some organizations will ing intranets and information sources, to the keting, sales, manufacturing, finance, human need a portal to amalgamate their portals... resources, and other lines of business have current use by many organizations as a way Workplace Integration: A rapid evolu- deployed their own intranets—organizations of Web-enabling business processes. We are tion of the application integration capabilities are looking to increase knowledge sharing, so also seeing portals rolled out to enable em- in portals is certain. Currently, we have the they are deploying portals as kind of a super- ployee self-service and collaborative capa- ability to bolt-in applications on an interface intranet, or, you may have heard this one, an bilities. But portal solutions are moving or emulation basis. The future of integration intranet on steroids. fast. The next generation of enterprise portals of business systems in portal environments is will move beyond the primarily inward- much more focused. The customization of facing model to include business partner information extraction and presentation— collaboration, customer interaction, and sup- rather than simply providing an emula- port for such functions as procurement sup- tion window, notifications and alerts— port. The idea of the “Workplace Integration “The next generation will emerge, along with other advanced Portal” will see organizations realizing integration functionality. tremendous return on investment and signifi- Wireless Access: As use and acceptance cant business benefit. of portals will move of WAP devices and other technologies develops, portals will need to increase their EIP:Current Deployments beyond the primarily device independence. Hummingbird and As mentioned, enterprise portals are some other portal vendors have certain basic being rolled out currently to primarily inter- inward-facing model.” wireless capabilities today, but down the nal users. Organizations are using portals for road, portals will need to be accessible and a variety of reasons. Some of the typical useable by different devices. current implementations are outlined below: Project/Role Focused: Many portals Hummingbird EIP:Providing the Building today are project or role focused—designed Inward Facing/Self-Service: The fact is Blocks for Next Generation Portals and deployed as either pilot projects or to that the vast majority of portals are inward solve a particular pain. For example, a portal facing, designed and deployed to internal Hummingbird EIP is a fully customiz- might be deployed to help members of a audiences: self-serve applications; informa- able web-based workspace that provides a project track tasks, collaborate, and access tion sharing; amalgamation; and application single point of access to all business-criti- required information resources. integration rolled out to the company and cal information and resources, including Departmental/Line of Business-Driven: maybe a few select business partners. structured and unstructured enterprise data. There may be certain departments in the The real trend is that most portals are Beyond providing an interface for accessing organization that are innovators—perhaps small-scale at the moment. This is due in part and viewing information, the Hummingbird the marketing department wants to begin to the immaturity of the solution—organiza- EIP works by connecting users to content in

S10 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 context, enabling them to quickly process, managed through existing security profiles filter and act upon information from any (LDAP, NTLM, ADS, NDS, etc.), elimi- enterprise source. nating the need to create and maintain addi- tional security accounts for users. Built-in Meeting the Requirements of encryption and support for standard “Current portals simply authentication models minimize required Technology and Business security maintenance. Hummingbird EIP was designed from Scalability can't handle the volume. . . the beginning to satisfy the different needs A key benefit of the enterprise informa- of both IT professionals and line of busi- tion portal is that it is capable of increasing But that is changing fast.” ness users. staff efficiency and effectiveness. Time sav- For knowledge workers, Hummingbird ings attributable to the centralized envi- EIP enables enterprise agility and helps ronment of the enterprise portal are signif- achieve maximum competitive advantage. icant. However, without a scalable archi- For IT departments, its ease of implementa- tecture, increased efficiency turns quickly tion and administration guarantees a rapid and into insufficiency. substantial return on investment by cutting Hummingbird EIP was built from the Personalization costs associated with developing customized ground up to be a true enterprise strength Personalization within enterprise portals systems and providing a solution that is faster solution. This allows organizations to imple- allows users to assemble the elements they to deploy and easier to maintain. ment with confidence, knowing that their need in the way that makes most sense to Knowledge Worker Benefits portal server can accommodate not only thou- them. Similar to the concept of consumer ◆ Single Login sands, but hundreds of thousands of users if portals such as My Yahoo! and MSN, the idea ◆ Unified Search need be. is to create a personal website with all the ◆ Personalization Search and Categorization required and desired elements. However, ◆ Application Integration/Centralized View Rapid access to information is the basis besides choosing from things like local news ◆ Collaboration of enterprise portals. However, because organ- feeds, stock tickers, sports scores, horoscopes, ◆ Information Technology Benefits izations, over time, have gathered so much and weather reports, users can add such com- ◆ Openness information in so many different formats, ponents as mission-critical applications, ◆ Security providing this access is not an easy task. department-specific data sources, business ◆ Scalability Hummingbird EIP provides a proven, uni- intelligence and reporting tools, and collab- ◆ Openness fied solution that allows users to find both orative features. It is increasingly important for solutions structured and unstructured data from all Hummingbird EIP also incorporates a to be deployable and accessible across a databases, repositories, and file systems, variety of unique features that allows users to variety of platforms and devices. both internal and outside the organization. create their very own web-based workspace. With a platform, application, and device- Hummingbird EIP doesn’t just find and Users can build multi-page environments to independent architecture, the Hummingbird display information. Rather, it presents customize the portal to their individual needs EIP allows for maximum flexibility. content in context by automatically gener- and provide for maximum productivity gain. Hummingbird EIP is deployable on both ating business taxonomy and categorizing Moreover, users can develop and choose from UNIX and Windows NT and accessible from results into commonsense groupings—by various themes that provide a personal or cor- PC, laptop, and even wireless devices. source, relevance, topic, or concept. Users porate look and feel, as well as the ability to Another element of “openness” is the can even define custom agents that monitor apply platform-specific interfaces for desktop ability to extend the investment in existing sources and repositories to automatically PCs and palm devices. This allows users to technologies. With its e-Clip (XML and Java collect relevant information and send notifi- access EIP content regardless of what device plug-ins) architecture, organizations are free cations to alert the user of content additions they are using or where they are located. to bolt in data sources, mission-critical appli- and updates. Collaboration and Feedback cations, and even other information systems Application Integration One of the great benefits of enterprise without the need for the custom program- It is critical for enterprise portals to portal solutions is the unequaled collabora- ming or tedious interfacing traditionally asso- access other internal and external appli- tive capability they make possible. Imagine ciated with integration tasks. cations. This functionality ensures that being able to instigate immediate action to Security users will be able to not only retrieve and correct a misinformed decision as a result of As with any Internet solution, security view information, but to act on it. For your own analysis and findings. Think of the issues are paramount. Organizations need to example, users may want to perform analy- cost savings of organizing an online confer- know that their information, data sources, and sis on some sales data they received, or ence to review concepts for an upcoming mission-critical applications are safe from delve into a monthly performance report. advertising campaign, rather than arranging unauthorized access. They’ll need immediate access to business for ten attendees to fly to the main office for Hummingbird EIP is ideal for both users intelligence and reporting tools to do this the day. By enabling this type of on-the- and IT administrators. Hummingbird has work and may even require collaboration fly collaboration, enterprise portals present developed a technology called Common tools or facilities to publish and distribute tremendous opportunities for increasing Authentication Protocol (CAP) Server their findings. bottom-line benefits. that delivers the single login model to Hummingbird EIP provides users with a Hummingbird EIP provides a compre- Hummingbird EIP. By entering a single pass- centralized, unified, and consistent environ- hensive feedback loop that allows users word and username, users gain access to all ment for interactions with all applications. to rank pages, features, and functions, and data sources, applications, and collaborative The integration services greatly simplify both make recommendations. Additionally, the tools they would normally have in a client/ enterprise deployment and interactions for Hummingbird EIP facilitates real-time mes- server network environment. From an admin- the end user, thereby reducing costs and saging by providing users with the ability to istrative standpoint, user authentication is implementation time. send messages to other online users. ❚

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S11 wide array of platforms. Device and plat- form flexibility helps to fulfill the promise Bringing Applications to of Web computing as the ideal model for today’s mobile workers, who can move seamlessly from one device to another and receive a consistent, personalized informa- the Enterprise Portal tion set, including applications. Citrix Systems, Inc. offers server-based computing products that help organizations Application Access in the Digital Economy gain efficiency and reduce Total Cost of Application Ownership (TCA). When used in conjunction with a portal solution, Citrix¨ By Michael Richtberg, Director,Product Management,Portal Products,Citrix Systems,Inc. MetaFrameª application server software reduces costs for portal administrators by enabling centralized application rollout, per- In today’s fast-paced global marketplace, this approach is time-consuming and expen- sonalization, administration and security. the ability to give mobile, distributed workers sive, and may delay portal implementation. Specifically, Citrix application serving tech- ready access to the applications and data they Likewise, these implementations may have nology delivers cost benefits by: need for sound decision-making has become reduced interactivity or may not be feasible Reducing TCA through single-point vitally important for businesses striving to be because the “download and run” model is management. Citrix centralizes application productive, agile and profitable. The popular- too resource-intensive. administration, support and deployment, ity of Web-based computing, combined with How can interactive, legacy applications enabling IT staff to implement rollouts and the need to expedite information access, be Web-enabled for inclusion in enterprise upgrades and conduct troubleshooting and has spurred adoption of enterprise portals. portals without requiring re-engineering that training from the server farm rather than In their fullest manifestation, these company can significantly delay and/or dilute ROI having to visit each desktop. Web sites aggregate, personalize and serve from the portal implementation? And how Speeding up ROI on new applications. applications, data and content to users, while can these applications be more efficiently Users are able to access new applications and offering management tools for organizing managed, deployed and supported to aug- upgrades as soon as they are installed on and using information more efficiently. In ment the cost benefits of a portal? the server. some companies, portals have replaced the Permitting the most diverse set of client desktop, providing a virtual workplace with platforms to benefit from the portal. Citrix the ease, convenience and ubiquity of brows- Server-based Application Delivery Independent Computing Architecture (ICA¨) er-based access. Portals also deliver ROI and Management technology, which provides the architec- benefits from faster, easier information ture underlying the Citrix application access, including increased worker produc- The most compelling answer to the serving environment, supports Windows¨, tivity, more effective decision-making and second question is server-based comput- Macintosh¨, UNIX¨ and Web operating plat- greater IT efficiency. ing, a key enabling technology for portal forms. This allows users to continue using True desktop replacement means a portal implementations that also reinforces the their current devices, or choose inexpensive needs to offer a full complement of infor- portal concept of information aggregation. thin devices. mation resources. Business applications are, Analogous to an enterprise portal, which cen- Supporting application deployment via arguably, the most vital category of infor- tralizes comprehensive information resources any connection, with minimal bandwidth mation that workers need to access for and serves them via a Web browser, server- demands. The advent of wireless communi- planning, decision-making and execution. based computing centralizes applications on cation devices that incorporate Web browsers They also typically represent a major in- a server and deploys them to users via a will undoubtedly generate user demand for vestment—and often a competitive advan- single interface. Just as an enterprise por- portal access. Citrix ICA enables application tage—that the corporation should continue tal improves user productivity through sin- access over wireless networks as well as to use when moving to a Web-based sys- gle-point information access, a server-based more traditional wired LANs and WANs with tem. From the standpoint of productivity, architecture enhances the overall efficiency very low bandwidth requirements. application access via the portal is needed of a portal solution through single-point so users are not forced to switch back and application administration. Fast Web-enablement of Applications forth between the browser and the desktop In the server-based computing model, to do their work. With a split browser/ application processing, administration, sup- Delivers Immediate ROI desktop system, it is more difficult to port and deployment are based 100% on a Returning to the first question about how locate and coordinate material from vari- central server. Users view and work with to adapt legacy applications for portal-based ous sources. Users are also typically tied to the application interface, sending key- access, there is a unique product that helps the desktop device because it provides key strokes and mouse movements over the companies quickly launch comprehensive applications that may not be accessible via network to the server and receiving screen enterprise portals—and quickly begin reap- the browser. updates, files and other data. Because pro- ing their benefits—by Web-enabling exist- All these business drivers make a com- cessing takes place on the server, any ing Windows, UNIX and Javaª applica- pelling case for including existing and up- device becomes a thin client and only min- tions without rewrites. With this approach, coming applications in the portal imple- imal data travels across the network, result- applications are not converted to HTML or mentation. However, to date, few applica- ing in greatly improved application per- another language; rather, they are delivered tions have been developed specifically for formance and security. in their original form with full functionality Web-based delivery. Although it is possible This architecture enables application intact. In addition, the user interface remains to use existing applications by re-engineer- access on virtually any device, including wire- the same, so there is no need for user retrain- ing them for Web publication using HTML, less and handheld communication devices ing on the application. Organizations can also scripting, Java and other proprietary means, and information appliances, running on a tailor the applications each user receives, and

S12 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 personalize the browser and content around these applications. This product, Citrix NFuseª application portal software, works with Citrix MetaFrame to deliver existing, interactive, server-based applications via a portal. While MetaFrame provides server-side command and control of applications, NFuse instantly “Webifies” those applications, helping to create a cen- tral, online virtual workplace that promotes user efficiency and leverages a company’s investment in proprietary and off-the- shelf applications. In short, this Web-enablement technology allows companies to immediately begin receiv- ing both tangible and intangible returns on their portal implementation. With NFuse as a key 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 used business and productivity solutions. Citrix NFuse software enables instant personalized delivery of existing Windows,UNIX and Java applications to be integrated and published into Companies can “reuse” critical business a Web environment for access on any device running a standard browser. solutions on the Web instead of paying home, the road and other company offices. proved the ASP’s ability to deploy hosted to replace them; Employees were frustrated by the difficulty applications through the Web. ◆ Instantly integrate and publish virtually any of connecting remotely, and IT staff was application into a standard Web browser spending an unacceptable amount of effort to while retaining full application interac- Conclusion configure and support remote desktops. tivity and eliminating time-consuming, Merrill Lynch turned to Citrix NFuse to Citrix application portal and application costly application rewrites; create an intranet-based corporate portal. serving technologies help make enterprise ◆ Avoid user retraining on existing appli- Interactive applications, including inquiry portals a fiscally attractive proposition for cations because the user interface stays tracking and email, have been integrated and companies. By enabling the reuse of existing the same; published to a secure Web site, where they are applications and infrastructure in the portal ◆ Personalize the delivery of applications to accessed by more than 500 users via a Virtual environment, offering application access from individuals or groups based on login identity; Private Network. The personalization capa- wireless as well as wired networks and ◆ Create a seamless Web environment with an bilities of NFuse allow Merrill Lynch to tailor devices, and providing a server-based architec- intuitive interface for users by using the same applications and information to specific users, ture proven to reduce computing costs, Citrix applications they already understand; and including partner firms. strengthens the value proposition of portals ◆ Leverage the powerful management and The benefits Merrill Lynch has achieved and makes their implementation easier, faster security features of Citrix MetaFrame ❚ with its NFuse portal include cost and time and more successful. application server software. savings from eliminating remote desktop configuration, improved application access, About Citrix Support for Corporate Portal Solutions and the ability to share specialty applications Citrix Systems,Inc.is a global leader in application serving soft- among different offices. ware and services that extend the virtual workplace everywhere by Citrix NFuse supports and complements providing secure,reliable access to applications and information,and leading portal solutions, such as the Citrix ProTier a consistent user experience, on any device or network connection. XPSª product (via the acquisition of ProTier, a New Orleans-based Application Citrix solutions enable organizations of all types to deliver business appli- Sequoia Software), giving them the capabili- Service Provider (ASP), offers Independent cations to users with greater manageability,flexibility and cost-effective- ty to incorporate published interactive appli- Software Vendors a customized application ness. The company’s products, including Citrix MetaFrame application cations in their offering. This enables portal server software, Citrix NFuse application portal software and Citrix hosting solution for their customers. To dif- Independent Computing Architecture (ICA), a core application serving solution providers to offer customers compre- ferentiate itself from other ASPs, ProTier technology, have been widely adopted by the corporate mainstream to hensive access to all the tools, information needed to efficiently deploy custom hosted achieve key business goals.More than 100,000 organizations, including and applications they need. Citrix also sup- applications to end users via a Web portal. 99 of the Fortune 100, use Citrix software. Headquartered in Fort ports many other portal products through ProTier is using Citrix NFuse to integrate Lauderdale, Florida, Citrix markets its solutions worldwide through alliances with the other industry players. and publish applications to its Web portal value-added resellers, system integrators, consulting firms and OEM SM from which hundreds of end users access licensees.Citrix is traded on The Nasdaq Stock Market under the their applications via a Web browser. symbol CTXS and is part of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Case Studies For more information, please visit the Citrix Web site at http:// Using NFuse benefits ProTier by pro- www.citrix.com. Merrill Lynch viding rapid application deployment over For information on Citrix NFuse visit: http://www.citrix.com/ One of the world’s leading financial man- the Web without re-engineering, a signifi- products/nfuse/default.asp; Or call 800.427.9269 agement and advisory companies, Merrill cant reduction of bandwidth requirements, Citrix®, ICA®, MetaFrame™ and NFuse™ are registered trademarks Lynch sought a simpler way to provide appli- and successful fulfillment of Service Level or trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. in the US and other countries. All cation access to its Jacksonville, Florida facil- Agreements. As ProTier’s exclusive de- other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their ity’s users when they were working from ployment platform, NFuse has greatly im- respective owners.

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S13 problem by tailoring information results to the end user. “Everybody is used to seeing Making Personalized long lists of results but what people want are results that are relevant to them,” adds Dr. Jan Puzicha, RecomMind’s CTO. “Without understanding and incorporating Retrieval a Reality in user data into search, there is little context for the results.”

Knowledge Enterprises “Until now, tools have been built for the enterprise that focus on managing content By Dr.Thomas Hofmann, Chief Scientist,RecomMind Inc. but little has been done to understand the needs of “Information needs vary from person to tion: loading, parsing, understanding, retriev- person,” says Dr. Thomas Hofmann, founder ing, filtering, and delivering content but have the user. Two people in your and chief scientist at RecomMind, an infor- ignored the most important component in mation management and retrieval compa- the enterprise: the user. enterprise with different ny in Berkeley, CA. “Until now, tools have been built for the enterprise that focus on Personalized Retrieval needs type in the same query, managing content but little has been done to understand the needs of the user. Two The next evolution in enterprise informa- why should they retrieve people in your enterprise with different tion retrieval and management will come needs type in the same query, why should from tools that incorporate context into the same results?” they retrieve the same results? This illus- information retrieval. Context comes from trates the fundamental problem in infor- understanding the user and the value of the mation retrieval and management.” Until information sources they seek. By under- User-based Recommendations standing and interpreting information from now, enterprises have spent significant When searching for information, most personal profiles, RecomMind solves this resources on the content side of the equa- people in an enterprise pick up the phone and start dialing until they find the person who points them to the source. Picking up the phone works because the value of infor- mation is defined by users, not by how many key words are in a document. Incorporating this knowledge into search practices is the key to improving search results. RecomMind does this by first linking an individual with similar people who share a common interest, and then incorporating this data into informa- tion retrieval and management. For each search, the user also retrieves results that others have found useful. Even though we know that information retrieval should focus on the user, the indus- try has not made strides to incorporate user context into information retrieval and man- agement. Until now, the focus has been pure- ly on content. The next generation of tools for enterprise users will be focused on better understanding those users and meeting their individual needs. ❚

Dr. Hofmann is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientist of RecomMind. He is one of the leading experts in machine learning and has a strong background in artificial intelligence and computational statistics. Dr. Hofmann has pioneered sta- tistical methods for information retrieval, text mining, and user modeling. He can be contacted at [email protected] and welcomes feedback and conversation.

S14 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 Using Portal Technology to Improve and Streamline

Randall W. Eckel Business Processes and Chief Executive Officer Randall W.Eckel,a co-founder of InfoImage,has been Chief Executive Officer of InfoImage and a member of the Board of Directors since 1992.Mr.Eckel is a Decision-making recognized expert in collaborative and knowledge management solutions delivered through the framework of enterprise portals and is regularly quoted in trade and business publications.

By Randall Eckel, Chief Executive Officer,InfoImage to participate, and effectively share infor- mation. The decision-making process is now collaborative and interactive. Pre- Today’s progressive organizations have information, collaborating, analyzing and packaged workspaces, designed for specific empowered knowledge workers with front taking action. Each task represents a sig- roles or tasks within an enterprise or for line decision-making responsibility and nificant commitment of human capital, vertical markets, should also be available, expect them to make good decisions—yet with all of the associated expenses. Multiply and we call these Collaborative Decision organizations have not provided the tools these expenses by the number of function- Applications (CDA). to enable knowledge workers to be effec- al areas and business processes in an For example, a sales associate using a tive. As a result, they are empowered but enterprise, and the benefits of improving CDA for sales teams and customers can not fully informed. and streamlining the decision cycle have workspaces for clients, opportunities With the advent of corporate and enter- become apparent. and prospects. These deliver synchronized prise information portals, businesses gained What’s needed is a collaborative deci- customer-specific information from struc- tools to help knowledge workers aggregate, sion management solution within an enter- tured data sources such as accounts payable access and navigate through data from inter- prise portal architecture that delivers more and receivable, CRM and ERP systems, and nal databases, internal document repositories relevant information and experience to the unstructured data sources including docu- and Web sites. As the technology has user in less time. In other words, an enter- ments, discussions, news groups, informa- evolved, navigation has become more prise portal that represents the convergence tion feeds and e-mail. These workspaces sophisticated, content more relevant, and of collaboration, knowledge management can easily be shared among the entire interfaces more user-friendly and intuitive. and business intelligence. Such a portal account team—both inside and outside Even accounting for these advancements accesses content from disparate data the organization. in portal technology, portals remain pas- sources, synchronizes information around The ideal portal incorporates all of the sive presenters of information—allowing a role, process or project, allows users to functionality and performance associated information and applications to “coexist” collaborate with subject matter experts with mature enterprise information portals but not much more. throughout the decision network for insight and introduces a level of capability that With traditional corporate or informa- and experience, and extends the portal to elevates the portal to a tool that improves tion portals, knowledge workers must the value chain both inside and outside of an enterprise’s business intelligence, knowl- manually and mentally transform their the firewall. edge management and collaboration abili- data into useful information that can be ties—effectively turning these formerly acted upon. A typical business function independent capabilities into a core compe- within a traditional corporate portal, “With traditional portals, knowledge tency for business. ❚ such as finding information relevant to a workers must manually and mentally customer inquiry, requires users to navi- transform their data into useful About InfoImage gate through multiple pages and perform With the patent-pending InfoImage Federated Portal separate searches, sorts and filters to get information that can be acted upon.” ArchitectureTM,InfoImage Decision Portal speeds the decision-making related information from each data process at all levels of the organization and provides unmatched source. Nowhere in this process is the Enterprises possess tremendous intel- interoperability and scalability in the enterprise portal market. ability to collaborate with others for in- lectual capital. The challenge has been, and InfoImage enables business intelligence, knowledge management and collaboration across the value chain.Certified by BenchmarkQA, sight and experience. continues to be, providing access to that InfoImage enterprise decision portal software supports three million capital and capturing it for development of users through a network of federated portal servers.As the first vendor Gather More Information and best practices and shared learning. We with certified results showing global scalability, InfoImage offers Experience in Less Time believe that users should be able to create multinational organizations the ability to collaborate throughout the new or ad hoc workspaces focused on a enterprise regardless of the number of users. Founded in 1992, The ability to make a sound business specific topic, decision or project, populate Phoenix, Ariz.-based InfoImage has offices across the United States decision involves identifying and locating it with relevant information, invite others and is online at http://www.infoimage.com.

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S15 ing table provides some common features and functionality of portal technology and Enterprise Information the associated business benefits. However, there are downsides to these capabilities. As stated previously, if dis- cretion in how to use them is never real- Portals: Portals in Puberty ized, the benefits can be very easily turned into confusion. The real value then is not in having a portal with the most bells and whistles, but in realizing the benefit by capitalizing on the features that will pro- vide the most value from the investment. By Robert Bolds, Solution Manager, Knowledge Management and Portal, In doing so, however, there must be a com- Computer Associates International, Inc. mon level of understanding in order to facil- itate the benefits.

Remember that awkward time in your a geometric rate. This article discusses life when you suddenly underwent a lot how to gain business value by unleashing of unexpected changes that affected just the often overlooked collaborative capa- “We are out of the about every aspect of your life? The upside bilities of Enterprise Information Portal of these changes is that they are part of (EIP) technology. the maturing process. early adoption According to most analysts, we are Understanding the Enterprise out of the early adoption stage of portal technology, so it’s appropriate to say we Information Portal Value Proposition stage of portal must be in portal puberty. The signs are Portal technology is defined in vari- there: most vendors are beginning to sta- ous ways, but a practical means of under- bilize on a host of common features and standing the value of portal technology is technology. . . functionality; standards organizations by examining significant usage. Significant are already complaining there are none; because, at a practical level, if the capa- some companies are buying and imple- bility isn’t used to derive business value, we must be in menting portals for unknown reasons; no business benefits can be realized. The and the education and litany of portal trick is to turn features and functionality buzz (this article included) has grown at into practical business benefits. The follow- portal puberty.”

Common Features Business Benefits Defining the Corporate Semantic A common level of understanding is a key goal in deriving tangible business ben- efits. This is a process that involves corpo- Search Quick access to hidden information to facilitate business processes. rate standards, common and well-defined business processes and enterprise meta data Categorization Ability to organize information assets by business process,group,or job and, more importantly, meaning. With a category thus promoting access to relevant information. corporate semantic, a common understanding of business terms and processes exists at every functional level within the organiza- Query,Reporting & Analysis Better decision support as well as information dissemination and sharing. tion. This occurs when the portal and its underlying infrastructure supports context. In understanding the business grammar and Integration of information Ability to access through a single interface,all applications and information the semantic structure of an organization, it and applications required for increased job throughput. becomes vital to help every person within the organization to obtain the necessary Publish & Subscribe Maturation of business processes by collaborating with others,sharing information, information to do their jobs and develop and improving business performance. meaning from that information in the proper context. This translates into the portal being a context provider. As a context provider, Personalization Arranging the interface to meet an individual’s needs and desires for then, the portal must provide the proper increased job productivity. context through a well thought-out strat- egy. That strategy should include these logical constructs:

S16 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 ◆ Business integration vs. information integration or application integration. Integrating information and applica- tions are first steps to support business integration. A portal can support appli- cation and information integration but the weakness at this point can be a “Defining the EIP as a context provider lack of providing business context, or meaning, to the information. Business integration is the integration and trans- is the key to realizing business value.” lation through the meta data layer of information and applications to pro- vide context. ◆ Process Integration. In addition to providing context, the portal solution should support process integration. Process integration includes workflow, categorization and taxonomy servic- edge workers with irrelevant informa- because the inter-relationship between es. These services provide the founda- tion. Role-based content requires rele- the factors will provide additional benefit. tion for context. Information with work- vant information. Unification of the common technology flow, categorization and taxonomy The next requirement is the need for features, the strength of the collaborative equals context. task-based knowledge. This differs from nature of the enabling requirements, the ◆ role-based content in that task-based knowl- integration of knowledge to create context Application & Information Integration. edge is collaborative information that helps and the interaction of the worker with the This is a strict reference to source sys- define additional value beyond any particu- portal all combine to produce tangible busi- tems from which information is gener- lar role. For example, if a material analyst ness benefits. ated. It also includes the data adminis- analyzing usage patterns for a particular tration layers, such as cleansing, trans- assembly notes a high quantity of rejected Summary formation, and extraction. assemblies through the portal, collabora- ◆ Enterprise Meta Data Repository. Meta tion through a threaded discussion—or via Puberty is that maturing stage where data is vital as the mechanism for con- published findings in the workgroup with many factors come together to produce a text. The repository should not include QA and purchasing—might reveal that a more experienced, mature and productive every piece of information that exists, new vendor was selected. This task-based adult. By understanding the value proposi- only the information that will be utilized knowledge would then be instrumental in tion of portals we can understand not just to provide meaning. The repository then helping the analyst recommend that the the technology, but also the business ben- becomes the “single version of under- cheaper vendor was actually costing more efits that can be realized by enterprise standing,” not just the “single version of due to poor quality parts. information portals. And it doesn’t stop at the truth.” Another requirement is the need for this point, because the technology in and Defining the EIP as a context provider quality in context. This requirement ex- of itself won’t produce benefits. Using the is the key to realizing business value and tends through every layer of the informa- technology to enable context, we can derive benefit because it provides knowledge tion infrastructure and into the portal. business benefits by creating a corporate workers with a single personalized inter- Quality of content through the integration semantic through the integration layers, face that facilitates what they do—with layers, and residing within the repository, resulting in meaningful business value for meaning. In this manner, context will will produce proper interpretation of con- every knowledge worker. The requirements determine meaning. tent. The interpretation of content on the for achieving this goal are to provide basis of quality context produces better knowledge workers with role-based con- Enabling Context through an decision support, improved workflow and tent and task-based knowledge to improve Enterprise Information Portal consistent benefits. business processes. Additionally, the quali- Standardization is another require- ty of context and standardization must be By utilizing the key layers identified ment for enabling context. Standardization considered to produce increased opera- previously, the portal becomes an en- extends not just to information but to tional efficiency. The combination of these abling solution for all knowledge work- processes, as well. According to Barry requirements results in a unified, collabora- ers, whether they are internal employees, Boehm and Victor Basili, “Disciplined tive work environment. The benefits of the customers or partners. But achieving the personal practices can reduce defect intro- portal are not just inherent in the technolo- technical requirements needed to enable duction rates up to 75%,” (Pursue Better gy itself, but can be found to produce busi- context to be unlocked from within the Software, Not Absolution for Defective ness value and benefit by creating business portal is no small task. However, these Products, Software Engineering Institute). context and meaning through a planned, requirements for enabling context also The principle here is that standard pro- strategic infrastructure. ❚ drive business benefit. One of the first cesses can reduce mistakes, resulting in requirements is the need for role-based higher operational efficiency. This is one Computer Associates International,Inc.(NYSE:CA) delivers the content. Role-based content means that of the primary goals of enterprise infor- software that manages eBusiness. CA's world-class solutions the scope of content provided through mation portals. address all aspects of eBusiness process management, information management, and infrastructure management in six focus areas: the portal to an individual user is rele- The final requirement is that of unifi- enterprise management, security, storage, eBusiness transformation vant for defining business benefit. A prime cation. The notion of unification is the and integration,portal and knowledge management,and predictive example is providing too much informa- result of all the above requirements being analysis and visualization.Founded in 1976,CA serves organizations tion through the portal, such as syndicat- fulfilled. It further implies that none of in more than 100 countries,including 99 percent of the Fortune 500 ed content, thereby overloading knowl- the requirements are mutually exclusive companies.For more information,visit http://ca.com.

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S17 One rich and untapped source of corpo- rate knowledge is e-mail and the documents Power Your Portal sent through e-mail. E-mail is already the backbone for corporate communications— an Accenture study shows that the average U.S. manager sends and receives 220 e- with Real Brains mail messages per day. The use of e-mail as a source for systematically cataloguing employee expertise eliminates the need for people to specifically create documents about what they know.

By Tacit Knowledge Systems Harvest Private Knowledge and Maintain Privacy The notion of mining knowledge in e-mail Enterprise information portals (EIPs) can ◆ Not all information can be shared pub- often raises a privacy concern with users. do a good job of consolidating access to an licly. The sharing of sensitive informa- These concerns are eased only when users organization’s existing data and published tion is limited to the right set of circum- see that they have complete control of their documents. But, what happens when the stances and a certain set of people. This information and choices over what is shared. answers you’re looking for aren’t in the type of information usually never gets At the same time, an employee’s private portal? Can you still find what you’re look- published, and the opportunity to gain knowledge remains critically valuable. How ing for, and find it in a timely way? Or, do further value from the information is can the organization tap this resource without you revert to inefficient, ad-hoc processes completely lost. breaching privacy? like e-mail spam to find the information ◆ Tacit knowledge is very difficult to cap- Tacit uses a contact-brokering model, you need? ture. Properties such as instinct, feel, taste, balancing access to private information Most organizations are using EIPs to and smell enable people to solve problems with privacy. The system matches requests increase access to information and to im- or make decisions, but codifying this from information-seekers with subject- prove organizational efficiency. However, knowledge is nearly impossible. matter experts based on encrypted, pri- the Delphi Group estimates that 42% of vate information. The system then forwards corporate knowledge remains locked inside the request to the knowledge-provider. of employees’ heads. Paper documents Until he/she contacts the information- comprise another 24% of corporate knowl- “People are necessary to seeker, the identities of matched experts edge. To circumvent these limitations, remain anonymous. companies are pushing their employees transform information toward publishing more of their informa- Achieve Success More Quickly tion. This path only leads to another road- block—convincing employees to find time into results. “ The installation of an EIP is a large under- for creating documents. taking. On average, EIP launches require six to 12 months of detailed planning and Easy Access to Documents and integration work. However, Tacit can help you deploy Expertise Automation in just Data Isn’t Enough Unlock New Wealth From a few short weeks, with full expertise Your Company’s Expertise The process of authoring documents searching capabilities available at launch. As a result, you can implement expertise is not only time-consuming and labori- Complex problems with urgent dead- ous, but meritocratic organizations send technology while preparing your full EIP lines are solved most effectively and quick- implementation, without waiting for full the wrong message, preventing employees ly when the right information and the right from actively contributing their knowl- project completion. people can be accessed. While an EIP can With expertise-location technology in edge. Even when incentive systems are make information more accessible, equally in place to motivate users to create and place, your EIP expands into a unified gate- important is making people’s expertise avail- way to all of your organization’s information share content, the information tends to able. People are necessary to transform in- be less than complete for several funda- resources, including people. Thus, you can formation into results. Until now, organiza- instantly find answers wherever they exist in mental reasons: tional fluidity, geographical barriers, and ◆ the organization for better decision-making, It is impossible to capture the complete complex management structures prevented enhanced service to customers, and increased context and details of any project or busi- people from effectively finding and connect- competitive advantage. ❚ ness issue into a document. Omitted infor- ing with each other. mation may not have seemed important to An EIP with integrated access to corpo- the author, but could be critically impor- rate expertise dramatically increases user About Tacit Knowledge Systems, Inc. tant to someone else. productivity and effectivness. However, auto- Tacit is the pioneer and leader in providing Expertise ◆ There is a delay between the time busi- mation is the key to successfully harnessing Automation solutions. Tacit’s products—KnowledgeMail® and ness activities occur and the time a employee intelligence—the tracking process Tacit ESP for Portals—automatically and continuously inventory the skills and talents of your entire organization.With Tacit,people person can summarize those activities for "who-knows-who" and "who-knows- can instantly find and connect with the expertise they need to or ideas into a document. Therefore, the what" must be automatic, non-invasive, and make decisions, solve problems, and serve customers. Customers very latest development breakthrough continuous. Automation ensures the most such as HP,JP Morgan,Texaco, and Morrison & Foerster are using or the most current project status will current information is always captured, with- Tacit to gain efficiency,profit,and competitive advantage.For more never appear. out burdening users. information,visit www.tacit.com.

S18 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 Erick Rivas is President and CEO of Mongoose Technology. Mongoose is setting the Maximize Enterprise benchmark for Portal Lifecycle Management - the ability to cost-effectively design, assemble,deploy,and manage an enterprise portal within Portal ROI a single Environment. Mongoose PortalStudio™ is a visual portal authoring Erick Rivas environment for the rapid By Erick Rivas, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mongoose Technology, Inc. President and CEO development of customized e-business portals.Mongoose PortalStudio Server™ is a J2EE™ and XML-based portal An enterprise portal is the most pervasive the Portal Lifecycle Management checklist framework for easy aggregation and maintenance of application in the enterprise—it touches from the Delphi Group white paper “The e-business applications,and Mongoose RealCommunities! everyone and every data source. Without Hidden Cost of Portal Ownership.” adds person-to-person services for enabling effective web Portal Lifecycle Management, enterprise por- communities and online collaboration. tals can quickly become the most complex Plan for Growth The company counts BEA Systems and eBay among its and expensive application in the enterprise. As companies rush to deploy enterprise customers and offers its e-business solutions through OEM and consulting partnerships including Iconixx,SSI, portals, some are tempted to select a portal eKnowledgeCenter and others. Reduce Development and solution that is based on proprietary technol- Maintenance Costs ogy because they are promised a solution within days. Many soon regret the limita- Enterprise portal software follows an iter- tions of a closed platform and the cost of ative and incremental lifecycle similar to that ongoing maintenance. of other enterprise software—design, assem- number of people who effectively use it. A vendor-neutral portal framework allows ble, deploy, and manage. For business-criti- Community applications can help identify the integration of e-business applications and cal applications, most companies rely on an expertise, coach a new user, share knowl- data sources from many vendors through integrated development environment (IDE) edge, and reward customer loyalty. While readily available connectors. The ideal frame- tied to an application framework. The IDE many of these applications are available work provides system-to-system services for provides tools and mechanisms for seamless- today, they exist as point solutions. Having B2B integration and content aggregation, sys- ly automating tasks and deliverables within person-to-person services built into the tem-to-person services for portal access and each phase of the lifecycle. To improve col- portal server provides the infrastructure to laboration, the tools are organized by role so management, and person-to-person services produce real communities of purpose. that a non-programmer can build displays for web community and online collaboration These online communities share several and assemble applications from a library of applications. XML mapping tools and open measurable characteristics: reusable components developed separately API’s should be provided for integrating 1. Is there a necessary shared purpose by programmers. The benefits of Portal custom applications and data sources. The that we accomplish together? Lifecycle Management are similar to those framework should operate on a variety of 2. Does each member have an identity? Can realized in the software engineering lifecy- platforms, with industry-leading Java 2 we tell who’s who, even when anonymous? cle. A portal IDE helps manage complexity Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application servers. 3. Are we able to share information and in design, speeds development and deploy- It should provide role-based security, and ideas that fit our purpose? ment, and reduces maintenance costs. In an enable the portal to be rendered on browsers, 4. Can we build trust? How do we know it’s enterprise portal, these benefits are amplified mobile phones and PDAs. safe to deal with others in the community? by the many display, business logic, and data 5. How do we form reputations? What access components that must be maintained. Produce Real Communities lets us build status? The table below presents the features and Reed’s Law says the value of the enter- 6. Have we created ways to work together benefits of Mongoose PortalStudioª against prise portal grows exponentially with the in small groups? 7. Is our environment a shared space that Portal Lifecycle Management Checklist is appropriate for our goals? 8. Do we know who belongs in our com- Delphi Criteria Benefits Mongoose PortalStudio TM munity and who doesn’t? 9. How do we govern behavior so that it Component-level Enable Reuse across portals;Manage complexity; Portal components encapsulate display,business and supports our shared values? Management Minimize maintenance cost data access logic;Components designed then assembled within an integrated development environment 10. Is there a system for exchange of ideas, knowledge, support goods, and services? Library Services Easily find reusable components;Maintain Role-based access to component services ;Privileges to 11. Can we express our group identity? software integrity modify,copy,or assemble components;Track dependencies Are we aware of what others are doing between components right now? Iterative Development Automate lifecycle of validation,deployment,and Lifecycle process reflected in the development 12. Do we have ways to review our history Process modification;Simplify and accelerate maintenance environment;Components reused and managed and track our evolution? across overlapping,iterative lifecycles;Individual Portal Lifecycle Management, an open components modified and deployed without conflict portal framework, and communities of pur- Visual Development Facilitate the rapid design,assembly,deployment Development Environment Integrated with Portal pose are three ways to maximize enterprise Environment and management of portals;Reduced errors with Framework;Visual design masks complexity;Point-and-click portal ROI. ❚ Visual validation of the portal design assembly of display,application logic,and data access layers Separate Application High degree of personalization;Flexible Portal components defined separately from how they are Erick Rivas can be reached by email at Erick.Rivas@ and Presentation Logic development and deployment platforms displayed;Information and applications presented based on mongoosetech.com context:user,group,roles,location,display device,etc For product information,email [email protected] or visit www.mongoosetech.com

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S19 B2B catalogs are maintained by the content management system, but data for these Enterprise Content Management: catalogs is often pulled from the part de- scription housed in the ERP application. ◆ Web Content. Unstructured and structured Powering the Enterprise Portal content exists independently of a web site, but may be published to one or many sites. Enterprise Portals Provide Personalized Access to Web content, however, is content specific Information Assets to a web site, and has no useful purpose outside of the web site. Typically, web content includes the output from HTML editors or multimedia tools, web format- By Michael Rudy, Vice President of Business Development,Technology Alliances, ted images, and web page configuration IntraNet Solutions, Inc. information. Additional categories include informative and collaborative content, The Enterprise Portal market has gained empower business users to fully utilize the such as company news, joke-of-the-day, momentum as customers have realized the ad- information assets of their corporations while threaded discussions, community topics, vantages of simplifying web access to the greatly increasing efficiencies. and shared group folders. broad range of applications that their users An enterprise-strength content manage- The successful content management im- access daily. According to the Delphi Group, ment system should be capable of managing plementation provides end-to-end content 60% of the world’s 2,000 largest companies the three most common categories of content. management for these different types of con- either currently have an enterprise portal or These are: tent, from creator to ultimate consumer. Busi- will be building one in the next six months.1 ◆ Business Content. Unstructured content is ness-critical content management applications By offering single sign-on, personalized characterized by all of the operational, non- such as this require integration with authoring web interfaces, and connectors to the most database content that drives a business. tools, version and workflow management, common applications, enterprise portals offer Analysts have reported that the majority translation to web formats, web page layout, consistent, optimized access to a broad range of total corporate content falls into this and distribution through standard, mobile, and of corporate information assets. These assets category. Typically unstructured content wireless browsers. can be roughly divided into two enterprise includes text documents, images, spread- application categories: sheets, presentation materials, and may also Together,Enterprise Content ◆ enterprise content include drawings, reports, email, video and ◆ all other enterprise applications. audio. The business purpose for moving Management and Enterprise unstructured content to an enterprise content Portals Increase Efficiencies management system is to maximize the in- Enterprises Generate and Manage The greater the maturity of the content formation exchange, use and reuse of this Multiple Types of Content management implementation throughout an important business property. enterprise, the faster the enterprise portal can Concurrently, many companies have ◆ Structured Content. Generally considered deliver an investment return. If the content launched initiatives for organizing content the domain of the database systems, struc- management system can aggregate a broad throughout their enterprises. META estimates tured content also has significance to enter- range of content, then the value of connecting the content management market to total $10 prise content management systems. As the content management system to the corpo- billion by 2004, and of this $10 billion mar- organizations increasingly use the struc- rate portal extends across this broad range. ket, $6 billion will be spent on business-to- tured information format of XML, content When the content is managed from end-to- business and business-to-employee content management systems are now expected to end—from creator to consumer—and when management. 2 Enterprise web content man- store XML formatted documents and man- the portal is involved in that end-to-end process, agement systems provide the means to organ- age XML tags as metadata, another struc- the portal user is able to integrate every phase ize, approve, and publish a broad spectrum of tured format. Structured content may also of the content lifecycle into their portal experi- content, promoting greater leverage of a com- be extracted from other enterprise systems, ence. When IT managers find enterprise portal pany’s intellectual assets. Together, enterprise such as ERP systems, and entered into the and content management solutions competing portals and web content management systems content management system. For example, for the same project dollars, they should ask themselves, “what will be the value I deliver if I don’t have content management as part of my enterprise portal solution?” ❚

1 The Delphi Group, as reported by eCompany, May 2001 2 META Group, 2000.

About IntraNet Solutions IntraNet Solutions®,Inc.(www.intranetsolutions.com),headquar- tered in Eden Prairie,Minn.,offers Web content management solutions for rapid deployment of scalable business web sites.The company is recognized by end-users and industry analysts for its ability to meet the 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 offices throughout the U.S.,Europe and Australia.

S20 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 Mr.Coleman is co-founder, chairman and CEO of BEA Portals Unlock the Knowledge Systems,Inc.founded in early 1995.Mr.Coleman brings to BEA over 27 years of high- technology experience with that Drives Business Value particular emphasis on software development.Prior to BEA,he held various management positions at Sun Microsystems, Bill Coleman Inc.,including:founder,vice co-founder,chairman and CEO president,and general manager By Robert Duffner, Director of Product Marketing,BEA Systems,Inc. of SunIntegration Services;vice president of system software overseeing SunOS,Solaris,and related products;and co-founder of Sun Federal,Inc.Mr.Coleman Enterprise portals are the primary aggrega- and even to transform themselves into new began his career in the U.S.Air Force as chief of satellite operations tion and access points that enable employees, kinds of enterprises. in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.Mr.Coleman has a partners, suppliers and customers to more There’s little coincidence that the bur- bachelor’s degree in computer science from the United States Air Force Academy,and a master’s degree in computer science and efficiently function and collaborate. Accord- geoning enterprise portal market is heating up computer engineering from Stanford University. ing to META Group (Dec. 2000 report), [$1.5 billion business in 2002 according to portals will help reduce the cost and imple- Giga Information Group] at the same time as mentation time for customer relationship man- industry experts claim Web Services is the next agement, commerce chain management, and computing paradigm. In fact, IDC estimates the employee knowledge management strategies. market for infrastructure software and services Integration These customer-focused business strategies that simplify integration of business processes Traditional EAI, and next generation in- drive the creation of new business value, will approach $50 billion by 2005. META tegration technologies, are vital to architect which is key to competitive differentiation. Group (Dec. 2000) predicts that by 2005 the portals and back-end applications on a com- However, to realize this potential, business portal market will evolve into the new standard mon, standards-based platform. Enterprise must shift away from traditional approaches user interface built atop back-end services. portals must integrate with myriad data- to portal deployment, approaches that stifle in- As enterprise portals increasingly become bases, ERP systems, inventory and account- tegration and growth. Business should adopt the Web interface, or dashboard, for control ing applications, third-party systems, and the perspective of a portal environment that is and management of Web Services, businesses Web servers. This integration greatly reduces designed and built on e-business platforms. must re-consider the criteria for evaluating operating costs and accelerates delivery of World-class e-business infrastructures re- enterprise portal products. To meet future new applications. quire a common portal environment and Web business needs, enterprise portals should have transaction platform—at BEA this is known an underlying structure with these four ele- as an e-business operating system—to help ments: presentation, personalization, frame- Framework ensure seamless integration, growth without work, and integration. The ultimate test of a portal is whether it pain, rapid deployment, and high perform- provides business users with the tools to be as ance. Moving away from standalone portals Presentation effective online as offline. IT departments can and applications eliminates the risk of over- delegate administrative responsibilities to line lapping functionality and the inefficiencies A portal’s value lies in its ability to present of business managers based on logical groups caused by intra-company communication desired content in a usable format. Enterprise or regions, and specified privileges. In turn, breakdowns. Smart, efficient knowledge shar- portals must support multi-channel access these managers establish rules-based entitle- ing can only enhance organizational perform- and pervasive computing, to include access ments for customers, partners and staff. The ance and customer value. through mobile devices and support for instant communication. The portal must deliver rich, result is a set of tools that managers use to re- interactive presentation layouts, such as strict access, control behavior and encourage The Role of Enterprise Portals dynamic HTML pages, and a consistent look action based on each person’s role. and feel across all applications. As an ex- History has shown us that each major ample, BenefitsCorp’s B2E portal provides computing paradigm—mainframe, client/ account executives self-service access to Conclusion server, Internet—was accompanied by an as- retirement plan account data and email from Enterprise portals require continuous sociated user interface. Mainframe computing mobile personal digital assistants and PCs so enhancements and additions. This requirement had scripting language, client/server comput- that they can do their jobs more efficiently, means open and flexible e-business platforms, ing had Windows, and Internet computing had more responsively, and more cost-effectively. which evolve with an organization’s needs, the Web browser. As we approach the next scale with its growth and support a broad range computing paradigm—Web Services—a new Personalization of knowledge-based and transaction-based interface will be borne and evolve to harness applications, are a must. ❚ its power. Personalization not only enhances sales Web Services are designed to take advan- effectiveness for customer-facing applica- tage of new Internet standards for exchanging tions, it boosts efficiency and comfort levels About BEA data and facilitating dynamic communication among business users. BEA WebLogic allows BEA Systems (Nasdaq: BEAS) is one of the world’s leading between disparate hardware systems and businesses, such as Citigroup’s Worldwide e-business infrastructure software companies, with more than 10,000 customers around the world. BEA WebLogic E-Business software programs. In short, Web Services Securities Services organization, to build and Platform is the de facto standard for more than 1,900 systems inte- make it possible to build bridges between sys- integrate content management systems and grators,ISVs and ASPs to provide solutions that fast-track and future- tems that otherwise would require extensive registration applications that collect informa- proof e-businesses for high growth and profitability.Headquartered in development efforts. Using a portal interface, tion provided explicitly by users, as well as San Jose,Calif.,BEA has 92 offices in 32 countries.Contact BEA at Tel: businesses will be able to improve agility implicitly by tracking behavior. 408-570-8000,www.bea.com,or [email protected].

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S21 Having previously worked with Ernst & Young and SFR (a leading Corporate Portals telecom company in France) in financial control positions, Emmanuel Ifrah has been the CEO of Ennov since its creation in Require Complete 1999.Mr.Ifrah received a M.B.A. from the H.E.C.Graduate School of Management (Paris). Emmanuel Ifrah Ennov provides complete Chief Executive Officer KM Strategies 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 quality By Ennov assurance modules.Ennov is releasing its corporate KM portal in 2001. Knowledge management (KM) can be These can either be embedded together defined as content management (CM) into one portal or separated, with the To- woven into business processes. KM is Do section on a general home Intranet intended to provide people with easy and page and the My Projects portal on its timely access to the right information, in own. Avoid trying to stuff too many appli- a controlled and organized way. While cor- cations or too much information into one porate portals may seem like a simple way page, but also avoid cluttering your desk- to achieve this objective, a portal imple- top with too many portals. In any portal, functions are critical or desired for your mentation should be approached within the the employee’s tasks should be automati- company. Some companies may want to context of a comprehensive knowledge cally updated with changes occurring in search only by meta-data; others may want management strategy. the workflow application. full-text search of their files, or even Such an approach requires an elucida- semantic search, which gives results that tion of your short and long-term goals are related to your search query but not and also an understanding of how the key necessarily containing the keyword in the elements of KM, such as information “How do the key search. For instance, when one searches flows and content management, will fit for “Knowledge Management” using a into your corporate portal. semantic navigator, one can find related doc- elements of KM, uments on portals, workflows, etc. regardless of whether they contain the keywords Optimizing Your Processes; Short such as information “Knowledge” or “Management.” Versus Long Term Goals As for other aspects of content manage- Almost anything that happens in a flow and content ment, one should be notified in the portal company that may result in a financial whenever a document that concerns him/her loss has an associated business process: a management, fit into has been changed, updated, or archived. customer complaint, a development project, or even a travel request. KM aims to make your corporate portal?” Communication Functions in Your Portal business processes easier and quicker, but also more traceable and controlled. Putting one’s e-mail inbox on the home Sometimes these goals can come into con- portal is standard. However, other commu- flict and managers must decide whether Information Flows nication tools such as chats and discussion the short-term or long-term goals are groups require more anticipation and analy- more important. Among the psychological challenges sis. Some companies may choose to have Take an example of a bank whose associated with defining the rules and companywide discussion groups and chats, asset managers have always responded architecture of a KM solution is the need to whereas others may choose to designate to back-office errors by calling or e-mail- think in terms of information flows rather individual chats and discussions for partic- ing downstairs to request correction. This than corporate hierarchy. This means that ular departments, projects, or offices. It is is a very simple process and accom- discussion groups, document access, and important to remember that the objective of plishes the task more quickly than workflow participation must be organized KM is to capture and utilize information, not entering the error into a workflow man- in a way that reflect everyday business just create it, so organize your free commu- agement application. However, when practices. An example of this principle is nication forums in a way that is search- there is a problem in a large transaction, that the CEO’s assistant must have nearly able and usable by your employees. it is critical that the bank find the source equal access to company information as the There are many ways to structure a of the error with speed and precision, CEO himself, which may give the assistant portal, but the important themes that should and it is here that KM saves a company greater information access than others in run throughout the portal and the overall time and money. higher positions. KM solution are integration, organiza- tion, searchability, and traceability. As a Processes in Your Portal Content Management in Your Portal general rule, make sure that you priori- tize and stay focused on achieving your Your portal will normally include a When choosing a search solution, you objectives, without getting lost in the end- To-Do list and a “My Projects” section. should first write down exactly which search less possibilities. ❚

S22 Special Supplement to July/August 2001 Mr.Panjwani’s career spans more than 15 years in executive management, Enterprise Portals: software development,sales and marketing.His vision for using the Internet to harness the power of human capital through collaboration was the Powering Mission- genesis for the founding of iManage,Inc.in 1995.iManage Max Panjwani is now a leading provider President and Chief Executive of e-business content and critical Applications Officer,iManage collaboration software platforms and applications. Under his leadership,iManage has experienced phenomenal growth.In fiscal year 2000,iManage’s revenues rose 62 percent. After successfully taking the company public in November 1999, By iManage, Inc. Mr.Panjwani continues to position iManage as the leader in the emerging enterprise content and collaboration marketplace. The Internet and World Wide Web have ush- aggregating business-critical information ered in a business revolution, at the heart of from disparate enterprise sources is dra- which lies a fundamental shift in the way matically reduced. Security business is conducted. Despite the transfor- Smarter business decision-making as Security is a primary concern for all col- mations that are underway, stiff competition enterprise knowledge is leveraged through laborative applications. It is essential that is forcing businesses to implement collabora- advanced data aggregation, powerful search the portal provide ways to encrypt data tive business solutions that integrate internal mechanisms, and automated notification and and documents sent over a public network. systems and leverage existing technology to content publishing based on business rules. Optimally, the enterprise controls the filtering harness the knowledge and data that resides of information, to create “collaboration sand- across the enterprise and among suppliers, Stronger customer, supplier and part- boxes,” where only certain users or groups partners and customers. ner relationships when doing business can gain access. Web sites provided companies an entry to with your company is personal, convenient Scalability the development of content and exchanges and rewarding. The current business climate and econ- that span the supply chain; portals offer next- omy demands that enterprise technology generation electronic collaboration, content User Considerations have the capability to adapt to changes in and commerce. The enterprise portal is a the user base, and integrate with the most personalized, single point of access for the There are several key architectural con- demanding applications. internal and external user where the compa- siderations for creating a successful enter- ny’s Web channels come together—the prise portal: user platforms and interface, Simplicity Internet, intranet, extranet and marketplace infrastructure, scalability, openness, securi- Paramount to fulfilling its mission-critical exchanges—to exploit the cumulative infor- ty and simplicity. Information served by role is the time it takes to deploy, manage and mation, knowledge and data that will enable the portal needs to be accessed via a com- administer the portal technology. A modular greater business efficiencies. prehensive set of electronic touch points, approach provides the greatest flexibility for including the Web, e-mail, desktop appli- building content, collaboration and com- merce functionality and adapting the level of The Portal Advantage cations like Office 2000, support for mobile and WAP-enabled devices, enabling the user complexity as users ramp up the learning curve and their needs grow. Out-of-the-box In its most powerful form, the corporate a range of choices to access and interact user interfaces have been designed to mini- portal is a platform for global companies and with data. mize user training by using familiar meta- enterprises with extensive supply chains to Portal technology, in and of itself, is not phors, such as the Web and e-mail. integrate mission-critical applications such a panacea for the enterprise. The potential Organizations that realize now the value as Customer Relationship Management, for top-line gains is significant, but only if of collaboration throughout the extended Supply Chain Management, eProcurement, users embrace it. The Web-induced infor- enterprise will gain a competitive advantage workflow management, knowledge manage- mation explosion underscores the impor- on their competition. In the long term, how- ment, business intelligence, exchanges and tance of providing user personalization and ever, collaboration will define nearly every eCommerce. Unifying disparate and diverse access control. aspect of global business. Collaboration will applications, users, and information sources Openness no longer be a luxury or ancillary business in a single environment that is personalized, Portal technologies that support open function, but rather it will be the new core efficient, and easy to use is complex, but the standards can be easily integrated into a competency that binds the business world. top-line benefits can be enormous. company’s existing infrastructure. The por- Visionary organizations that embrace collab- Tomorrow’s market leaders must distill tal needs to be operating system—and web oration as the next major phase in the busi- mission-critical knowledge from specific server—neutral so that enterprises can host it ness evolution of the Internet will be the transactions and disseminate it across broad, on the platform of choice. Support of J2EE market leaders of tomorrow. ❚ cross-functional business processes for reuse and .NET interfaces for integrating the by workers around the world. This interactive, business logic with other backend servers collaborative process contributes immea- iManage, Inc. are important for interoperability. It is also iManage’s WorkSite solution provides an e-business platform and surably to the combined organizational important that the portal software makes expertise of the enterprise. applications that simplify and enrich business-critical collaboration work extensive use of XML for data-aggregation across the value chain.iManage WorkSite drives new business efficiencies Productivity improvements as the and XML-based standards like XSL/XSLT for enterprises by empowering them to create key links among amount of time spent accumulating and for user-interface customization. employees,customers,suppliers and partners.

Special Supplement to July/August 2001 S23 For more information on any of the companies who contributed to this white paper, visit their website or contact them directly:

BEA Systems, Inc. InfoImage 2315 North First Street 4000 N Central Ave, #2300 San Jose CA 95131 Phoenix AZ 85012 Phone: 800-817-4BEA or 408-570-8000 Phone: 602-234-6900 Fax: 408-570-8901 Fax: 602-234-6950 E-mail: [email protected] E-Mail: [email protected] Web: www.bea.com Web: www.infoimage.com

Computer Associates International, Inc. IntraNet Solutions, Inc. One Computer Associates Plaza 7777 Golden Triangle Drive Islandia, NY 11749 Eden Prairie, MN 55344 Phone: 631-342-6000 Phone: 800-989-8774 Fax: 631-342-6800 Fax: 952-829-5424 Product Info: 800-225-5224 Web: www.intranetsolutions.com/kmworld Info: http://ca.com/products/info_request.htm Web: http://ca.com/products/jasmineii_portal/ Lotus Development Corp. 1 Rogers Street Cambridge, MA 02142 Citrix Systems, Inc. Phone: 800-828-7086 or 617-577-8500 6400 NW 6th Way Fax: 617-693-5562 Fort Lauderdale FL 33309 E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 954-267-2463 Web: www.lotus.com/km Fax: 954-267-3014 8890 McGaw Road Columbia, MD 21045 Mongoose Technology, Inc. Phone: 888-820-7917 1300 Hercules, Suite 130 Fax: 410-715-6835 Houston, TX 77058 E-Mail: [email protected] Phone: 281-461-0099 Web: www.citrix.com Fax: 281-461-0505 E-Mail: [email protected] Web: www.mongoosetech.com Ennov 50 Broadway, Suite 1500 PurpleYogi, Inc. New York, NY 10004 201 Ravendale Drive Phone: 212-363-6356 Mountain View, CA 94043 Fax: 212-363-6862 Phone: 650-988-2000 E-Mail: [email protected] Fax: 650-988-2159 Web: www.ennov.com E-Mail: [email protected] Web: www.purpleyogi.com

Hummingbird Communications RecomMind Inc. 1 Sparks Avenue 1001 Camelia Street Toronto, Ontario M2H 2W1 Berkeley, CA 94710 Phone: 77-FLY HUMM Phone: 510-558-7895 Fax: 416-496-2207 Fax: 510-525-2351 E-mail: [email protected] E-Mail: [email protected] Web: www.hummingbird.com/kmworld Web: www.recommind.com

iManage, Inc. Tacit Knowledge Systems, Inc. 2121 S. El Camino Real, 4th Floor 990 Commercial Street San Mateo, CA 94403 Palo Alto CA 94303 Phone: 650-356-1166 Phone: 650-251-2000 Fax: 650-627-8751 Fax: 650-251-2010 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.imanage.com Web: www.tacit.com

Produced by: Kathryn Rogals Paul Rosenlund Andy Moore KMWorld Magazine 207-338-9870 207-338-9870 207-236-0331 Specialty Publishing Team [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

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

www.kmworld.com www.infotoday.com