While the concept of portals has been pioneered by the likes of Plumtree Software Inc. and Epicentric Inc., the prospect of gaining control of this lucrative market -- coupled with wide-ranging customer requirements -- have attracted a host of vendors, including application, software, and infrastructure players like IBM Corp. and BEA Systems Inc.
Whatever your view of enterprise portals, and there are as many opinions as there are IT infrastructures, the concept of centralizing the location of pertinent information and transactions is a solid one. Portals can be valuable tools for enhancing business processes.