IBM Unveils WebSphere Portal 4.1

IBM

"We believe WebSphere Portal, with this release, is the most complete, horizontal platform that you can implement B2E portals with, leverage that to do B2B portals, leverage that to do a B2C portal off of one strategic portal platform," said Larry Bowden, vice president of IBM Portals Solutions Software Group.

IBM is calling WebSphere Portal a linchpin component of its new Dynamic Workplaces practice, formed in an effort to enhance existing IBM corporate intranet technologies and solutions. WebSphere Portal 4.1 features include collaborative capabilities, new event-management support, Web services capabilities, content publishing options, enhanced security, a new search engine and preintegration with commerce technology.

Bowden said nine new partners would soon join a growing list of companies developing portlets for IBM WebSphere Portal. In mid-March, IBM said it added 23 companies including i2 and Vignette.

"We are adding a partner every two to three days and we intend to accelerate that," said Bowden. "I have a goal of adding a partner every day."

WebSphere Portal 4.1 has multiple entry points and add-ons so it can be offered to small and midsize businesses as well as larger enterprise customers, Bowden said. There are three offering levels: WebSphere Portal Experience, aimed at comprehensive e-business portals requiring advanced security and content management; WebSphere Portal Extend, aimed at e-business portals requiring robust collaboration; and WebSphere Portal Enable, aimed at personalized e-business portals that manage content and process transactions.

Pricing is on a per-processor basis for each of the three packages. Prices start at $55,000 and increase to $95,000 for the midprice system and $145,000 for the largest package. That package is only available with a minimum of four processors at a time, however, bringing the minimum price to $580,000.

IBM also said it will begin delivery in the second half of 2002 of several new WebSphere Portal offerings, including a new offering specifically designed for small and midsize businesses. Deliveries are also expected to include five new Portal Industry Editions and expansion of platform coverage to include IBM eServer iSeries, eServer zSeries and Linux-based zSeries.

Using WebSphere Portal 4.1, users can create "collaborative places" where team members can edit documents on virtual white-boards, establish information libraries, maintain group calendars or chat on bulletin boards and instant messenger-style discussion areas, said Bowden.

Other new capabilities include Collaborative Components, which allows functions such as the ability to know who is online at any given time and integrating that function into any portlet.

IBM also plans to ship, as part of WebSphere Portal 4.1, an enhancement that provides Web Services publishing and integration facilities. WebSphere 4.1 also adds a new, encrypted vault from IBM Tivoli Access Manager.

The English language edition of WebSphere Portal 4.1 is expected to be available for download on May 31 and generally available in late June, with non-English editions available in late July.

IBM is aggressively going after a chunk of a growing portal market, estimated by Giga Information Services to grow to $2 billion in 2005 from $850 million in 2002.