On page 8 of the magazine. Reality-Based Lotus takes a pragmatic approach to data integration and knowledge management with XML and Raven. The Spring Advisor DevCon is always my chance to take a hard look at what I saw at Lotusphere and put it to the test. In case you can't make it to Palm Springs to learn the real deal for yourself, here's my take on the hot topics. Instead, we just move from buzzword to buzzword at an incredible pace.
Portals are the Web version of decision support systems and executive information systems.
While I don't believe we're in the midst of radical change, the incremental changes made in the industry and embraced by Lotus are improvements. I'm particularly excited about the push for standardization and the use of XSL as a metalanguage. This isn't a startling new technology, but an incremental improvement demonstrating we as an industry have learned that simplicity and flexibility are the most important components of a good standard. The downside to XML is that each community must define its own tags, and such negotiation has never been easy. The upside is that vendors such as Lotus can include general parsing engines and tools to make XML easier to use once your particular industry agrees on a set of tags.