I would like to find out who are the best vendors of Portal solutions,
for a Microsoft environment.  We want to select a Portal solution (Eg.
SharePoint) for a medium sized Microsoft oriented company, and want to
know which vendors should be evaluated.  So I would like to have a
list of the 7 best/leading/most recognised vendors of these types of
solutions.

Some general things to be considered are:
- If the vendor has won any awards
- If they are a leader in their field
- If they integrate with other Microsoft products 
- If they have a large installation base or good references

Depending on the researchers skills we might later offer a seperate
amount to perform a technical comparison between each of these
vendors, against our criteria.  This can be discussed later.  The task
at this stage is just to provide the 7 primary vendors.

---

Request for Question Clarification by bobbie7-ga on 08 Jun 2004 06:33 PDT

Hello Redcap,

Enterprise Portal Development - 12 leading vendors
http://www.fawcette.com/xmlmag/2003_02/magazine/features/druby/default_pf.aspx

Could you please clarify if the information is this article is what
you have in mind?

Thanks,
Bobbie

---

Clarification of Question by redcap2004-ga on 08 Jun 2004 07:11 PDT

No, unfortunately that's not really what I'm after.  That article
covers enterprise portals on many different platforms (IBM, Sun,
etc.).  I'm after portals that are intended specifically for a
Microsoft environment. i.e. They run on Windows Servers, work with
.NET, etc.
SharePoint from Microsoft is one example of the type of portal that
fits this target.
It's also intended for a Medium sized company, so the big enterprise
portals (from IBM for example) would mostly be overkill.

---

Request for Question Clarification by tox-ga on 12 Jun 2004 19:17 PDT

Hi redcap,

I have found that with the exception of Microsoft, the leading
providers of portal solutions generally are not intended specifically
for a Microsoft environment (as you have requested in your
clarification).  Would you like the vendor list to be of the 7 best
portals which are made specifically for Windows?  Or the 7 best
vendors which are able to integrate with Microsoft products (though
not specifically designed to).

Also, the size of your company in terms of employees would be helpful,
as differnt vendors make different distinctions between a midsize
business and an enterprise.

Cheers,
tox-ga

---

Clarification of Question by redcap2004-ga on 13 Jun 2004 03:33 PDT

Hello Tox.  The portal will need to run on a Windows Server.  i.e. We
are not going to install a Unix Server or something else.  Since the
rest of the environment is Microsoft based, it could be nice if the
portal integrates with other Microsoft technologies.  Eg. Maybe
integrate with Exchange or Office in some way.  This integration
however is not critical.  The only thing that is mandatory is that it
runs on a Windows Server.

We would like a portal that has both corporate and personal areas (Eg.
Half of the window space could contain standard corporate information
and links, while the other half is customisable for each person).

For the size of the company assume its around 300 people.

Hi redcap!

I have gone through quite a number of portal vendors (there are
definitely a lot!) and determined which of the leaders in portal
technology suit your needs as a Microsoft-oriented midsize business. 
I have also included a summary for each product which corresponds to
your requested criteria.

I have found that many of the key players offer many common features
and that the differences between each really lie in the small details
and pricing.  Almost every vendor offers integration with Exchange and
Office.

I would be glad to clarify any questions you have or provide a list of
specific feature for the vendors, if you would like.


Cheers,
tox-ga



---------- The List:

 - IBM WebSphere Portal Express Plus
 - Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server
 - Computer Associates' CleverPath Portal
 - Plumtree Corporate Portal
 - Vignette V7 Portal Business Suite
 - SAP mySAP
 - Sybase Enterprise Portal (Information Edition)



---------- Summary:

----- IBM WebSphere Portal Express Plus -----
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/genservers/portalexpress/plus/

Awards:
 - Named 'Leader' by Gartner, (2002, 2004)
 - Intelligent Enterprise Magazine Readers' Choice Awards
 - eWeek's Excellence Award (2004)
 and many others...

IBM has been providing portals to large enterprises for many years now
and had a big hand in pioneering the field.  They were also among the
first to adapt the technology to be suitable for small and midsize
businesses with WebSphere Portal Express.  They have been named a
Leader by Gartner twice running for a reason.

WebSphere runs on any platform, including Windows 2000.  It includes
rapid integration features for Microsoft SQL, Exchange, Office, and
many other products.

IBM has many, many clients.  Some of their success stories can be accessed here:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.nsf/softwareL2VW?OpenView&Count=30&RestrictToCategory=software_WebSpherePortalExpress



----- Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server -----
http://www.microsoft.com/office/sharepoint/prodinfo/default.mspx

Awards:
 - Named 'Challenger' by Gartner 
 - CRN Product Of The Year Award
 - eWeek's Excellence Award (2004)
 - Intelligent Enterprise Magazine Readers' Choice Awards

Microsoft has long been a leader in many software markets and portal
offering is no different.  They generally take a different path from
other portal vendors by not always adopting standards, but their
product practically defines ease of integration.

SharePoint has a very wide installation base with small to midsize
companies due to its ease of installation and integration as well as
the benefit from the Microsoft name.  Success stories can be read
here:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/sharepoint/prodinfo/casestudies.mspx



----- Computer Associates' CleverPath Portal -----
http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=262

Awards:
 - Trend-Setting Product of 2003 in the "Portals" category at KMWorld 2003
 - Networld + Interop 2003 Award
 - "Best Client Software Award" at Internet World Fall 2002
 - Named 'Challenger' by Gartner 
 These are awards won specifically by CA's portal solution.  The
company itself and its related products has many won many more.

While CleverPath barely missed Gartners Leader Quadrant in 2004, they
are definitely among the top 7 leading products.  They have brought a
focus to easy and rapid deployment.

CleverPath can be run on a Windows platform and can rapidly integrate
with many Microsoft products, out of the box.  In fact, you can read
about one company's success integrating with Outlook here:
http://www3.ca.com/SuccessStories/Success_Detail.asp?CID=38576

CA's product is rather popular.   Quite a number of excellent
references may be found here:
http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/CollateralList.asp?CCT=19526&ID=262



----- Plumtree Corporate Portal -----
http://www.plumtree.com/products/platform/

Awards:
 - Named 'Leader' by Gartner, (2002, 2004)
 - Network Computing ?Portal Power? Winner
 - InfoWorld, Best Portal
 any many more...

Plumtree has long been the biggest player in the portal market.  They
were one of the first pure-player portal vendors though that focus has
shifed.  Along with Sun, they lead the open-source portlet movement. 
They are definitely a leader; they have been recognized as such twice
by Gartner.

With their portlets, Plumtree allows rapid integration with many
different products.  An example can be found here, their Microsoft
Exchange integration portlet:
http://www.plumtree.com/products/integration/portlets/exchange.asp

As one of the bigger portal vendors, Plumtree enjoy an extensive
installation base.  Their tendency to do very well in consumer's
choice awards indicate that they have very satisfied customers.


----- Vignette V7 Portal Business Suite -----
http://www.vignette.com/contentmanagement/0,2097,1-1-1928-4149-1968-4163,00.html

Vignette have a number of portal offerings; I feel the Business Suite
might best suit your needs.
Vignette Portal Business Suite: Tailored for businesses that need to
deploy and manage multiple Web sites and portals. Includes all the
features of the Vignette Portal Group Suite plus additional
capabilities to enable reuse of common functionality across multiple
portals, and rapid reconfiguration of custom portlets by both IT staff
and business users.

Awards:
 - Named 'Leader' by Gartner, (2002, 2004)
 - Forbes' "Best of the Web" (Four times)
 - KMWorld "Trend Setting Product of 2003"
 - Transform Magazine Names Vignette V7 as Product of The Year
 A more complete list of awards can be browsed here:
 http://www.vignette.com/contentmanagement/0,2097,1-1-30-1458-81-4008,00.html

Vignette is widely recognized as an industry leader as their list of
honors indicate.  They have been creating portals since the inception
of the field.

V7 is highly integrable and runs on any platform.  Vignette claims
that it "supports the widest range of infrastructure technologies,
running on the databases, application servers, operating systems and
search engines already in place within an enterprise, maximizing
existing technology investments."  A number of adaptors are available
for a number of applications including Office, Exchange, and MQ.
http://www.vignette.com/contentmanagement/0,2097,1-1-1928-4149-1968-4206,00.html

Vignette have compiled a very comprehensive and impressive set of
customer referrals from many different industries which can be viewed
here:
http://www.vignette.com/contentmanagement/0,2097,1-1-31,00.html



----- SAP -----
http://www.sap.com/solutions/smb/   (Small and Midsize Business Centre)

Awards:
 - Named 'Leader' by Gartner, (2002, 2004)
 - Customer Choice Award for Mid-Market Solution at Midsize Enterprise Summit 

SAP has long been a leader in the portal market.  They have been
recognized as such by both Gartner and Forrester Research.

SAP and Microsoft share a close relationship and have recently agreed
to collaborate on integrating their web services:
http://software.silicon.com/webservices/0,39024657,39120629,00.htm
Prior to this, SAP and Microsoft have integrated their products
together for about 10 years, and so SAP's portal is able to run on
Microsoft environments and leverage other MS technologies.

SAP has over 2600 portal customers and 9 million licensed portal seats
including Lockheed Martin, nited Nations, Royal Dutch Shell and
Siemens.
SAP Enterprise Portal Success stories may be viewed here:
http://www.sap.com/solutions/netweaver/enterpriseportal/customersuccess/



----- Sybase Enterprise Portal -----
http://www.sybase.com/products/ep/enterpriseportal

Sybase offer two editions; perhaps the Information is best suited to your needs:
"Information Edition - An economical portal solution for small groups.
The Information Edition contains a complete portal application
deployed on the Tomcat servlet engine and the iAnywhere ASA database."

Awards:
 - Named 'Visionary' by Gartner, (2002, 2004)
 - Well-Connected Awards: Business Applications (Finalist)
 - Computerworld Honors (Portal)

EP will run in Windows environments.  In addition, Sybase claim that a
key benefite of their software is "leverage of existing investments:
easily incorporate information from your existing ERP applications,
external news feeds, databases, messaging systems, and legacy
applications".
Sybase also offer a number of products aimed at other integration
needs: http://www.sybase.com/products/businessprocessintegration

Sybase's database of customer references may be viewed here:
http://www.sybase.com/detail_list/1,6902,48592,00.html

Good answer again.  Thanks Toc!  We need some time to go through all
of this now but I might come back with some follow on questions later.