In 1998 Merrill Lynch qualified the Portal marketplace with the following description:
Enterprise Information that enable companies to unlock internally and externally stored
information, and provide users a single gateway to personalized information needed to
make informed business decisions.
It’s all about access. A business cannot run effectively on data it cannot access easily
and quickly. An enterprise portal is an aggregation of information services, and a robust
portal framework includes multiple levels of infrastructure services that enable users
to access and produce reports for decision-making purposes on enterprise-wide databases.
A portal solution provides a personalized, single point of access to critical information
and services, from both internal and external sources. However, a portal is no panacea if
the back-end services lack the capabilities to bring the right data at the right time to
right users. But with good back-end integration, a portal can re-attach the brain of your
organization to it’s moving parts, providing employees and partners with simplified access
to information and each other. Enterprise solutions mean digging in and building a system
that clients wish they had in the past, are thankful for in the present, and proud of in
the future. The scalable solution, achieved via teamwork and joint effort, allows for
regular modifications and continuous innovations.
