Portals Turned Inside Out

E-commerce applications could turn the corporate portal market inside out. "Most of the initial success for portals has come at Global 2000 companies," says David Brennan, director of marketing at portal software developer Corechange (Boston). "Portal value increases as IT infrastructures become more disjointed and unorganized. IT complexity is often driven by the introduction of new applications, mergers and acquisitions, or the addition of employees - the type of activity you see at large, growing companies."

Many large companies are also beginning to push their way into e-commerce. To facilitate e-commerce transactions, businesses want to connect their internal applications with the applications of their partners and supply chain vendors. Portal technology can provide this type of connection.

"Currently, portals are used mainly in internal, or B2E (business-to-employee) applications," says Brennan. "However, our software is also suitable for B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) applications. I think portals are going to follow the same deployment route that EDI (electronic data interchange) did. First they are being deployed internally. When they pass the in-house test, they will be cascaded out to partner and supply chain applications."

XML: A Foundation For E-Commerce
According to Brennan, XML (extensible markup language) is the protocol of choice for transactions between businesses. "XML can be used to connect the applications within a portal, or it can facilitate portal-to-portal communication," says Brennan. "However, currently there are no finalized XML standards."

David Applebaum, general manager of Autonomy's U.S. operations (San Francisco), warns that although XML is attractive, it will not solve world hunger. "XML provides a good foundation for exchanging information between applications," says Applebaum. "It should provide more integration hooks than are currently available and simplify workflows. XML also addresses issues created by bandwidth constraints.

"However, for XML to function, adherence to format is critical. XML technology does not have the ability to do best-guess processing. If an XML program finds a mismatch in its commands, it will stop. The user typically has to manually adjust the commands before the process can continue."

Data Preparation Is Key To XML Success
Autonomy develops software that analyzes language patterns. Its technology has been deployed for search and categorization purposes in portal and knowledge management applications. "The key for an integrator working with XML is the up-front design of the system," says Applebaum. "If you don't do your homework regarding data preparation, you're dead in the water. Ninety percent of an integrator's XML effort should involve making sure that the mapping schema properly accommodates the data from all input sources. It's very important that all your data is properly tagged."

Applebaum recommends that integrators working with XML start by solving a single, easily identifiable problem. "The last thing you want to do is start by installing an XML-based, value-chain system that involves integrating an ERP system with a dozen logistics hooks. You're not going to be there on day one.

"If you're doing a procurement system, for example, you may want to start by using XML to integrate the catalogs of a couple of different vendors. Once you pull that together, you might want to work on an XML-based messaging system. Once you've figured out how to relay messages to various suppliers, you might want to consider integrating their systems with your customer's system."

Hard Questions Prevent Finger Pointing
Applebaum concludes that it is important for resellers working with XML to ask their customers the hard questions. "If they tell you it's their strategic direction to go with XML, ask them what that means," he says. "When you are dealing with amorphous technology standards, the potential for disaster is huge. Make sure you clearly understand what your client expects. Any misunderstanding about what you are trying to do can lead to a great deal of finger pointing if things go badly."