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Information Session: The Portal of the Future: What's Beyond Web 2.0?
August 14, 2008
Thursday, August 21st at 1:30 pm at the Delta Prince Edward.
The Information Technology and Telecommunications Division of Veterans Affairs Canada is pleased to extend an invitation to attend an information session with Mr. David Gootzit, Research Director for Gartner's application integration and middleware team.
Mr. Gootzit will give an informative session on Web 2.0 Portals on Thursday, August 21st at 1:30 pm at the Delta Prince Edward.
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The Portal of the Future: What's Beyond Web 2.0?
The portal of the future will evolve significantly. Through a concept called the 'portal fabric', the user will become the centre of their portal universe. Web 2.0 features are making their way into established portal vendors' product offerings. However, developments in areas like social networking and enterprise mashups mean that classical horizontal portal products may not be the only source for enterprise portals in the future.
1. How will the MyPortal provide the aggregation of portals and web resources demanded by users?
2. What role will the portal of the future play in enabling workflow, process and end user driven mashup creation?
3. What technologies will be used to build the portal of the future?
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Attached further is Mr. Gootzit's biography, as well as a Gartner research document on this subject.
Seating is limited and refreshments will be served. If you are interested in attending this session RSVP to Janeen McGuigan by email (Janeen.McGuigan@vac-acc.gc.ca), no later than Monday, August 18th.
Rob Robinson
Director, Business Management
Information Technology and Telecommunications Veterans Affairs Canada
ph (902) 566-7894
cell (902) 626-9047
rob.robinson@vac-acc.gc.ca
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Research
Publication Date: 23 January 2008 ID Number: G00154863
© 2008 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication in any form
without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to
be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Although
Gartner's research may discuss legal issues related to the information technology business, Gartner does not provide legal
advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner shall have no liability for errors,
omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein
are subject to change without notice.
Key Issues for Enterprise Portals, 2008
David Gootzit
The enterprise portal topic covers a range of portal trends and technologies. Portals
continue to be relevant to many areas of enterprise and consumer IT, so a variety of IT
roles and business users will find value in this research.
Publication Date: 23 January 2008/ID Number: G00154863 Page 2 of 7
© 2008 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
ANALYSIS
Topic Definition and Scope
The enterprise portal research area focuses on the products and infrastructure associated with
the development and deployment of enterprise portals. Gartner defines an enterprise portal as
Web software infrastructure providing access to, and interaction with, relevant information assets
(information/content, applications and business processes), knowledge assets and human
assets, by select targeted audiences, delivered in a highly personalized manner. Portals are used
by enterprises, but are also relevant to the consumer Internet. Many companies that are revisiting
their Web strategies are implementing portal technology to provide externally facing Web
presence. Enterprise portals may face different audiences, including employers (business-toenterprise),
customers (business-to-consumer) or trading partners (business-to-business, B2B).
Megaportals, such as Yahoo, MSN and Google, are high-profile examples of portals in a
consumer Internet context. Although the primary focus of this research is enterprise portals, it will
also track development among megaportals that will affect enterprise portal software and
deployment patterns.
Many, but not all, enterprise portals are built using a portal product or a software suite, including
portal functionality. A portal product is a packaged software application that is used to create and
maintain enterprise portals. These products can be used to design vertical or horizontal
enterprise portals. Vertical portals focus on accessing specific applications or business functions.
Horizontal portals seek to integrate and aggregate information from multiple cross-enterprise
applications, as well as specific line-of-business tools and applications.
The earliest Internet megaportals provided inspiration for the first generation of enterprise portals,
and are again providing insight about the directions enterprise portals will take. Social networking,
social tagging, wikis, blogs and personal home pages are examples of Web 2.0 functionality
found in the consumer Web, which vendors providing enterprise portal products are incorporating.
Gartner portal research covers trends, technologies, product functionality, market developments,
best practices for deployment and management, product and vendor selection, as well as portal
acquisition and deployment cost analysis.
Target Audience
Portal area research is directly applicable to IT professionals and business users, including, but
not limited to, the following representative roles:
" Application designer
" Application developer
" Application manager
" Business process analyst
" Content manager
" Director, applications
" Director, e-business
" Director, Internet strategy
Publication Date: 23 January 2008/ID Number: G00154863 Page 3 of 7
© 2008 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
" Enterprise architect
" Graphical user interface designer
" Information architect
" Integration engineer
" Intranet manager
" IT process analyst
" Portal architect
" Portal developer
" Project manager
" Software designer
" System architect
" Web architect
" Web designer
Key Issue 1: How are organizations using portals to deliver
business value through increasing business agility and to
improve efficiency?
Enterprises have successfully used enterprise portals to improve employee productivity and
customer and partner satisfaction, as well as enhance revenue and profitability. Portals are used
to increase business agility by improving an organization's ability to respond to and exploit
changes in the competitive environment. Research in this area will focus on how organizations
use different types of portals to improve operational efficiency and, increasingly, achieve cost
savings. It will also show how portals can be used to increase effectiveness and deliver
innovation. Examples of covered topics include:
" The role of portal technology in service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives
" The use of portals as platforms for the development and deployment of composite
applications
" The evolving role of portals in organizations' user interface strategies, especially in
relation to rich clients
" How the new features of future portal frameworks will deliver value
" How portals expose processes that reduce enterprise costs
" Portal cost justification and cost analysis
" How enterprise portals are used in specific industries, such as higher education,
healthcare and financial services, to create competitive differentiation and improve
efficiency
Publication Date: 23 January 2008/ID Number: G00154863 Page 4 of 7
© 2008 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
Key Issue 2: How will portal technology evolve through 2012,
and which vendors will provide these capabilities?
Understanding the evolution of portal technology and the portal market is critical for organizations
to succeed in their enterprise portal deployments. Although acquisition continues to reduce the
number of vendors providing portals, some vendors offer multiple portal products. Research
coverage will include:
" Identifying which vendors will be long-term players as vendor consolidation continues,
open-source alternatives gain traction and new entrants emerge
" Evaluating the appropriate role for "mashups" in the enterprise, including their
relationship to enterprise portals
" Analyzing vendors' efforts to incorporate new portal functionality, including Web 2.0
features, into their products
" Examining the impact of the consumerization of IT and Web 2.0 enterprise portal
strategies
" Identifying efforts by vendors to facilitate enterprises' mobility environments through
enterprise portal technology
" Analyzing relevant standards and specifications in the development and use of portals
Key Issue 3: What will the portal of the future look like, and what
impact will it have on enterprises and society?
Enterprises should plan for the portal of the future as technology evolves. Contextual
personalization has long been a feature of enterprise portal products, and portal technology will
play an important role in delivering contextual computing. Enterprise portals will also play a
prominent role in enterprises' overall user interaction (UX) strategies. Increasingly, the average
user will access a variety of enterprise and nonenterprise portals, ranging from their business-toemployee
portal, to their banking portal, to government portals, to megaportals. In the future,
these portal stovepipes will be replaced by the portal fabric, where portals are aggregated so the
user becomes the center of his or her own portal universe, rather than adapting behavior based
on the portal of the moment. The emergence of the portal fabric will enable portal ubiquity, where
access extends beyond the Web browser to any network device. One likely consumption
mechanism for the portal fabric will be MyPortal. The following topics will be investigated:
" Development of the portal fabric and its impact on the enterprise and society
" Portals' role in an organization's overall UX strategy
" Emergence of MyPortal and its adoption in the enterprise
" Relationship between portals and organizations' mobility strategies
Key Issue 4: How should organizations design, deploy and
maintain their portals?
Organizations should incorporate best practices, where available, around their initial portal
deployments, as well as ongoing initiatives. Information on cutting-edge uses of portal technology
is also useful for planning the evolution of an organization's portal use. Many technology
Publication Date: 23 January 2008/ID Number: G00154863 Page 5 of 7
© 2008 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
attributes of Web 2.0 provide inspiration for enterprise portal deployments. Guidance on the
following topics will be provided:
" Best practices for portal project planning and implementation
" Best practices for portal operations and maintenance
" Best practices for employee-facing, customer/constituent-facing and partner/supplierfacing
portals
" Staffing guidelines and skill requirements
" Architectural approaches for portal deployments
" Portal governance strategies
" Enablement of interoperability between portal deployments, including integration of
Office SharePoint Server 2007 with other portals
" Portal environment-consolidation strategies
Related Research
Examples of representative research for the enterprise portal topic area include:
"How to Determine If Your Enterprise Web Presence Requires a Portal Foundation"
"Usability Drives User Experience; User Experience Delivers Business Value"
"IBM-Mainsoft Deal Boosts WebSphere Portal Interoperability"
"Magic Quadrant for Horizontal Portal Products, 2007"
"Google Won't Be Your B2E Portal Yet, but It May Have Bigger Enterprise Portal Plans"
"'MyPortal' Will Be Your Portal"
"Considerations and Responsibilities for Your Portal Governance Team"
"A Portal Competency Center Facilitates Enterprise Portal Deployments"
"Oracle's WebCenter Suite Is the Interface for Future Fusion Applications and the Focus of
Activity for Workplace Users"
"Portals Are the 'Swiss Army Knives' of Enterprise Software"
Highlights of Planned Research
Gartner analysts who are focused on enterprise portal research will continue to explore emerging
trends, technologies, products, skills, methodologies, strategies and best practices associated
with internally and externally facing portal design, development, deployment and integration,
particularly in the context of emerging megatrends, such as SOA, software as a service (SaaS),
mashups, social software, the consumerization of IT and the emergence of the high-performance
workplace.
Related Topics
Topics closely related to enterprise portals are:
Publication Date: 23 January 2008/ID Number: G00154863 Page 6 of 7
© 2008 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
" Application and Web architectures
" Application governance and managing applications
" Application markets and ecosystems
" Business process management
" Collaboration
" Enterprise content management
" High-performance workplace
" Integration middleware
" Mashups
" Middleware
" Multienterprise B2B
" Platform middleware
" SaaS
" SOA
" Social computing
" Web 2.0
" Web content management
Publication Date: 23 January 2008/ID Number: G00154863 Page 7 of 7
© 2008 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
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____________________________________________________________________
David Gootzit
Research Director
Role/Responsibility
David Gootzit is a research director for Gartner's application integration and middleware team, where he focuses on the enterprise portal market, vendors and deployment issues. He also monitors the impact of Web 2.0 on enterprise Web deployments. He is based in Arlington, Virginia.
Bio
Prior to joining Gartner, Mr. Gootzit worked as a consultant in the aerospace/defense field while finishing his degree.
Working at Gartner provides a unique opportunity to understand the major questions facing technology users every day, while letting me play an instrumental role in formulating the answers to some of those questions.
Years of Experience
" 9 years with Gartner
" 9 years in IT industry
Education
" Graduate (honors), international politics and international business diplomacy, Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service
Bio Last Modified: 16-Aug-2007 5:23 PM
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