The corporate portal concept is catching on with American businesses. But while internal Web sites offer many advantages, some analysts wonder if these portals can live up to the levels of productivity and knowledge-dissemination improvement touted by the systems' vendors. They also can make travel arrangements and order office supplies. Businesses have always used ad hoc ways to get relevant information to employees.
Managers have long scoured trade publications and forwarded relevant articles.
And one of the prime reasons companies set up intranets was to allow access to databases. What makes business portals so attractive is the variety of information that can be accessed, the ease in which information can be found, the customization of the information's presentation and the security the portals afford. You'd receive a thick binder of information that was out of date as soon as you got it. People would throw it away because it wasn't relevant. When using Plumtree's product, workers can view information culled from a farrago of sources, including Lotus Development's Notes, the Web, company databases and groupware discussions.