April 2004 Cutter Benchmark Review: Enterprise Information Portals: Resolving the Identity Crisis

by Robert D. Austin

Over the past decade, pretty much anyone who has used the Internet has also used portals. Portals have become familiar; we know what they are, what they do, and how to use them. But as corporate IT applications, they have suffered from an identity crisis. It's not the fault of the portals or of portal vendors. The problem lies with us -- the current and prospective users of corporate portals -- and it boils down to this: we don't know what we want portals to be.