In September 2003, Cutter Consortium conducted a survey that asked 206 organizations worldwide various questions pertaining to the development and use of enterprise information portals (EIPs). The goals were to uncover corporate EIP application development issues and trends, to discern how companies are applying the technology to various applications and domains, and to provide statistics that companies can use to benchmark and measure their portal initiative.

Here in Part II of this series, I continue my discussion of the survey findings by focusing on corporate application trends (see page 2 for survey objectives and methods). Specifically, I consider the following questions:

Here I continue my discussion of the survey findings by examining the success of respondents' portal efforts as well as the benefits applications provide (see page 2 for survey objectives and methods). Specifically, I consider the following trends and issues:

Here in Part IV, I conclude the discussion by examining the survey findings on corporate use of commercial portal software products for building EIPs (see page 2 for survey objectives and methods). Specifically, I consider the following trends and issues:

Do you know that, like many other companies, yours is slowly but surely being sucked into using portal technology? If you are a committed CIO, CTO, or senior IT executive who is fully engaged in reaping the benefits of portals, you may think you know how to make prudent use of "portal power." If you are unsure whether your enterprise is fully utilizing that power, then you are in trouble. But in either case, today's economic climate makes it essential for companies to use the power of portals to build collaborative environments while delivering business value and support to customers.

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.

This special issue of Cutter IT Journal focuses on several aspects of the business-IT relationship, which all the contributing authors agree is changing, although they don't always agree on the trajectory or pace of that change. When we conceived this issue, we asked ourselves about where the relationship had been and where it is going -- and where we think it should go.

The dysfunctional relationship between business people and information technology organizations has impeded technological progress for too long. IT has contributed a great deal to productivity and business agility over the years, but it has consistently fallen far short of its potential. Don't blame hardware failures or software bugs -- it's the business-technology relationship that's broken.

I continue to be amazed at the level of the divide between "the business" and "IT" in many well-known and profitable organizations. I believe that most individuals actively or passively seek to replace the "us versus them" distinction and converge these two cultures into a unified business-technology mindset. So how do we merge two groups into one team?

On 25 April 1985, Coca-Cola introduced "New Coke" amid enormous hoopla and fanfare. Everyone had done their jobs correctly to that point. R&D had produced a product that outgunned Pepsi in taste tests. The advertising engine was ready to go with a marketing blitz. Coca-Cola plants around the country were geared up to produce the new drink. All systems, including IT systems, were go.

Organizations striving to excel at exploiting information technology need to adopt a new IT mindset. Why is a new mindset necessary? As others have noted before, by changing how we look at the world, we can change the world itself. By the same token, by changing how we look at IT, we can change how organizations exploit technology to drive business performance and competitive gains.