Mike Heck and Infoworld deserve top marks for doing an old fashioned, comprehensive and good review of the Portal Software and 7 of the major players there: BEA Portal Server, IBM Webphere Portal, Microsoft SharePoint Portal, OracleAS Portal 10g, Plumtree Suite, Sun Java Portal, Vignette Application Portal are all covered in great depth. In fact this is a throwback to 14 years ago when Mike enlightened readers on the latest range of Project Management or other tools for Infoworld in thorough yet illuminating fashion.
Yes, Sybase, Hummingbird and maybe URFavorite portal were missed. And there was only limited commentary about other competing thin technologies such as the new Java Server Faces or thick technologies such as RIA-Rich Internet Application tools (think Adobe Acrobat Designer, Macromedia Flex, Droplets, Nexaweb, etc). But Mike more than makes up for that with good coverage of the major trends and trade-offs in the portal market. Top marks.
Yes a good intro indeed!