Toward portal standards

With the increasing development of enterprise portals, the question of standards is slowing creeping to center stage. However, according to InfoImage CEO Randy Eckel, no one has been championing the interoperability cause — but that’s about to change. InfoImage has adopted Microsoft Web Parts, an Internet based approach for building content and services, for its freedom 2 portal product.

Says Eckel, “I’m going to get on the phone with the CEO of every portal vendor and encourage each one to do the same.” He adds that adopting Web Parts is a natural progression because a huge percentage of content and applications developed by Microsoft are already embraced by users. The move will allow all content developed by Web Parts to be directly integrated into the freedom 2.

The Web Parts XML schema enables developers to structure the delivery of Web-based content and services, such as e-mail and calendar functionality, customer management data, training information, or news feeds, to a user's portal.

Web Parts can deliver any Web-based content such as XML, HTML or script. Developers can change a portal’s layout, add or remove content, or select a personalized style. Because Web Parts share a common schema they can be easily reused across portals, and catalogs of Web Parts can be created that allow system administrators to better manage and distribute digital dashboards throughout their organization.

InfoImage plans to work with as many portal vendors as possible to ensure high-fidelity interoperability between freedom and other enterprise portal products on the market today. InfoImage will also assist customers in adopting Web Parts technology with their existing portals and Web-based applications and help facilitate portal interoperability as early as mid summer.