It’s a small(er) world

Designed for small and medium-size businesses, IBM's new WebSphere Portal – Express requires just one server, installs with five mouse clicks and is affordably priced, says the company.

At $77 per user, the new offering embedded with the performance, standards-compliance and reliability of IBM WebSphere Application Server, claims the company. IBM adds that it also offers full support for portal personalization, campaign management, single sign-on across applications, authentication, authorization and communication between portlets.

The open-architecture software is ready for Web services and includes an LDAP directory; alternatives such as Microsoft Active Directory and Lotus Domino Directory are supported as options. WebSphere Portal - Express also offers a choice of databases. IBM has also announced a sister product, WebSphere Portal - Express Plus, that contains all the same functionality as WebSphere Portal - Express but also includes instant messaging, online "people-awareness" and chat, virtual team rooms, group calendaring, task management, document libraries, document sharing and revision capabilities.