Web Portals - the shape of things to come?

Sept 2000

Web Portal. It sounds like something straight out of H.G.Wells doesn't it? As in: "Why yes Doctor you're right, it seems that in activating the Web Portal, we've inadvertently opened up a door into another dimension, and now we only have three hours to save the Universe."

However, beyond their questionable value to melodrama and prospective place in Sci-fi folklore, what exactly are these Web Portal things that everybody seems to be eulogising about at the moment? And if brown is the new black, cooking is the new rock 'n' roll, and light blue Conservatism is the New Labour, then what does that make the Web Portal?

Well, apart from being merely the latest in the long line of fashionable IT and Internet buzzwords to hit the business thoroughfare recently, and certainly one which we should all be looking out for over the next few months, the much-vaunted Web Portal is being touted as no less than 'the very future of online business'.

Or to use other, perhaps less overblown language, it apparently represents the next generation of Web technology.

For the uninitiated, Web or Information Portals are literally online 'portals' that provide the web site visitor with what amounts to a 'gateway' for accessing information that has been collated from various sources elsewhere on the Internet or alternatively on corporate intra and extranets. Corporate versions for instance, also enable companies' staff and customers to use internal applications that reside on their intranets, or to access other data from third party sources such as stock quotes, news and updated sales information.

The second approach to credit card payments is to use a specialist intermediary to process payments for you. Solution providers such as World Pay or PDMS Advanced Systems can provide a payment processing service in which they take the perceived credit risk associated with the internet and charge an appropriate percentage of the transaction value.

Finally for the most committed online entrepreneur, a fully fledged internet merchant agreement can be entered into with the credit card company. This, in conjunction with appropriate online clearance systems, is the most time consuming and capital intensive way to get going, but it is legal and may be the cheapest if volumes are large. A limited number of solution providers including PDMS Advanced Systems are authorised by the credit card companies to provide the automated clearance facilities to merchants.

But isn't that just a well functioning web site? Well no, not quite.

Whilst still pretty much in their infancy, according to senior figures in the industry portals will eventually become much more than just extensions of Web site technology. They will for instance combine what's already on your web site with information, all manner of online transactions and even complex applications from outside the confines of your company. Thereafter they will combine and personalise that information for whoever has made the request in the first place.

The idea is that the user visiting your site/portal gets everything they're looking for and more from you and your business partners, thereby delivering that elusive and yet all important online value-add that you've been looking for all this time.

So isn't this just another overhyped technology designed to allow technology vendors to get their hands in our wallets yet again? Whilst on one hand it's easy to see it that way, (research suggests that anything between 50 and 80 per cent of businesses are already making a move toward having portal-style presences on the Web), on the other - with the promise of added functionality and competitive edge and differentiation - it's easy to see why we are so keen to let them talk us into it.

It's all so very tempting.

Ironically, here is also where it gets tricky however. The fact is that there are any number and variety of vendors out there who are perhaps keener to jump on the portal bandwagon than they have any right to be at this point. And it would be both foolish and disingenuous to suggest that they are doing so purely for the good of the market place. For these vendors, beyond leveraging online business, the real temptation is a chance to get their hands on a larger piece of the altogether broader and more lucrative business to business software pie.

Accordingly, it is already an extremely crowded marketplace. It is one heavily populated with companies that made their names from developing front ends for corporate intranets and other such hybrids, and with this next generation opportunity promising to perpetuate their growth they are unlikely to stand aside and watch others take the lion's share. We are already seeing many providers trying to differentiate themselves with promises of cutting and leading edge solutions that are 'tomorrow's technology today' and 'unrivalled in the field'.

- Whether they currently have a product and service offering to justify their presence in the market or, as in most cases, not.

Several infrastructure technology suppliers are also getting aboard the Web Portal gravy train with their own portal technology strategies, and they too will no doubt be promising the earth if that proves to be the most effective means to their end - i.e. early market domination.

Signalling the value of the market still further, the majors too are as keen to get in on the act as anyone. The likes of IBM and Yahoo are already becoming very active in the corporate portal market space. And Oracle is hoping to create a standard format for customers to build software components (or portlets) that can be linked together using its WebDB development tool to provide a single view of corporate information.

Everybody's doing it.

However, with all this activity taking place in a market segment that end users have barely even heard of, it comes as no surprise that industry analysts, whatever their opinions on the value of technology itself (by and large pretty positive), are almost without exception urging caution where early adoption is concerned.

So yes, portals may well be the future - just be certain that they don't come at the expense of the present.

I bet H.G. Wells didn't see that coming.

Published in Money Media, Sept 2000