IBM is to roll out an updated version of its WebSphere Portal next
month, featuring improved content publishing capabilities and
portlet creation and interoperability. It also offered a preview of
its embedded component functionality, scheduled for release next
year, designed to deliver on-demand productivity capabilities
within the portal.
Version 4.2 of WebSphere Portal will be integrated with IBM Content
Manager, providing content publishing capabilities both to and from
the master Content Manager repository. The portal will also still
provide a local content store.
Version 4.2 will also include Click-to-Action capabilities, which
let portlets from different vendors communicate with one another.
With Click-to-Action, users can assemble multiple portlets into a
process or a navigation path through the portal.
The forthcoming version of WebSphere Portal will add portlet
generator capabilities for PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems
applications, said Larry Bowden, vice-president of IBM
Portals.
The portlet generator tool lets non-technical users easily
construct, name, and deliver portlets without coding or IT
department intervention.
IBM plans to roll out portlet generation capabilities for other
applications over the next few months.
Previewing functionality scheduled to appear in WebSphere Portal
Version 5.0 next year, IBM unveiled forthcoming embedded components
designed to add basic productivity services to the portal on
demand.
The reusable, available as-needed components are an element of
IBM's larger computing-on-demand initiative, which aims to deliver
the right level of functionality when it is needed.
The first set of the lightweight, browser-based components will
deliver basic presentation, word processing, and spreadsheet
capabilities available as services within the portal. The feature
is not designed to compete against or replace Microsoft Office and
other productivity suites aimed at the needs of power users.
"This is not a suite of office functionality. It is an awareness
capability in the portal [to] a service in the back," Bowden said.
"If you have a process where a spreadsheet needs to be called,
wherever you are in a particular process you can have the portal
make a call to those services. The portal is a great mechanism to
have a bunch of services just sitting in the back waiting to be
called by particular applications."
Version 5.0 will also integrate with Microsoft Office so anything
created in Office can be viewed and integrated with the
productivity components.