An enterprise portal is a specific form of a portal, designed to help carry out specialized business functions. At first glance, one might assume that enterprise portals are merely glorified company intranets, providing company employees with a consistent, centralized location from which to access relevant sites on the Web. Enterprise portals, however, possess much greater capabilities. First, enterprise portals serve a far broader audience than just an enterprise's employees. These portals connect enterprises with channel partners, trading partners, suppliers, customers-and even other enterprises, when relevant.
Information is the lifeblood of so many of today's businesses.
Highly prized information can include business intelligence, content management, warehoused and stored data, and data management applications. Enterprise portals allow such information to be readily consolidated, managed, analyzed, and distributed throughout the organization. Enterprise portals are rich in the resources they offer to users. For example, online exchanges are common features of enterprise portals. The two sides can negotiate terms and prices through the portal's exchange.