Hype Cycle for Portal Ecosystems, 2003

Transcription

1 G.Phifer,D.Plummer,D.Gootzit,S. Hayward, N. Drakos, R. Valdes, M. Gilbert, F. Caldwell, L. Latham, R. Knox, Y. Natis, M. Pezzini, K. Shegda, D. Logan Strategic Analysis Report 6 June 2003 Hype Cycle for Portal Ecosystems, 2003 Several portal technologies are fully mature. Others are on the verge of productivity, but need better integration, which should be helped by better integration standards. Management Summary Most enterprises use portal products to provide the framework for building and deploying enterprise portals. Many portals use the core portal engine, as well as such features as application integration, search, classification, collaboration, content management and business intelligence. This Hype Cycle focuses on these portal technologies, known collectively as the portal "ecosystem." There will be morespecific Hype Cycles for content management, knowledge management and the e-workplace. All of these areas are closely related to the portal ecosystem. Some portal technologies, such as those enabling portal ubiquity and portal fabric, are new. Others, such as search and collaboration, are mature, but because many portal products have lightweight integration with them, they are on the downward slope, headed toward the Trough of Disillusionment. Technologies such as role-based personalization are mature and are used extensively in enterprise portals. Application platform suites (APSs) and smart enterprise suites (SESs) will soon become the main method of obtaining portal functionality. Gartner Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

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3 CONTENTS 1.0 The Hype Cycle On the Rise Portal Ubiquity Portal Fabric Federated Portals Across Vendor Families Personal Work Portals Business Process Fusion Open-Source Portals XML-Based Multichannel Output and Interaction Smart Enterprise Suite Advanced Web Services in Portals At the Peak Java Specification Request APS Web Services for Remote Portals and JSR Virtual Content Repositories Process Portals Basic Web Services Support in Portals Federated Portals Within Vendor Families Contextual Personalization Sliding Into the Trough Advanced Integration in Portals Integrated Content Management Integrated Collaboration Portlets Mobile Access to Portals Entering the Plateau Role-Based Personalization Basic Search Conclusion...12 Appendix A:Hype Cycle Definitions...13 Appendix B:Acronym Key June

4 FIGURES Figure 1. Hype Cycle for Portal Ecosystems, June

5 1.0 The Hype Cycle Visibility Process Portals Key: Time to Plateau Virtual Content Repositories WSRP and JSR168 Application Platform Suite Advanced Web Services in Portals XML-Based Multichannel Output and Interaction Business Process Fusion JSR170 SES Open-Source Portals Basic Web Services Support in Portals Federated Portals Within Vendor Families Contextual Personalization Advanced Integration in Portals Integrated Content Management Integrated Collaboration Less than two years Twotofiveyears Five to 10 years Obsolete before Plateau Role-Based Personalization Basic Search Personal Work Portals Federated Portals Across Vendor Families Portal Fabric Portlets Mobile Access to Portals Portal Ubiquity As of June 2003 Technology Trigger Peak of Inflated Expectations Trough of Disillusionment Slope of Enlightenment Plateau of Productivity Acronym Key SES smart enterprise suite WSRP Web Services for Remote Portals Maturity Source: Gartner Research (June 2003) Figure 1. Hype Cycle for Portal Ecosystems, On the Rise 2.1 Portal Ubiquity Definition: Access to portals provided by any network device, including automobiles, consumer electronic devices, voice, Web devices and rich clients. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Five to 10 years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: No standards exist, and network access for some devices, such as automobiles and consumer electronics, is immature. Business Impact Areas: Access to any portal from any device. Analysis by Gene Phifer 6 June

6 2.2 Portal Fabric Definition: The user is the center of the portal fabric world, with universal, federated identity management providing key security and personalization data. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Five to 10 years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Federated identity management is just emerging, and standards enabling the portal fabric do not exist. Business Impact Areas: User attributes, security permissions and personalization settings recognized by any portal. Selected Vendors: Sun Microsystems. Analysis by Gene Phifer and Daryl Plummer 2.3 Federated Portals Across Vendor Families Definition: Portal products from different vendors that can be deployed in a federated network that enables interoperability and resource sharing. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Five to 10 years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Interoperability standards are in their infancy. Business Impact Areas: Complete interoperability across portals without custom integration code. Selected Vendors: Vignette. Analysis by David Gootzit 2.4 Personal Work Portals Definition: Advanced portals with role-based features targeting specific work functions. Web-based clients that address 80 percent of knowledge work with 20 percent of the applications. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Five to 10 years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Personal work portals are re-entering the Hype Cycle, following the "digital dashboard" hype balloon. Stronger portal architectures and improved integration are moving these products along. Business Impact Areas: Personal productivity improvements and reduced operating costs. Selected Vendors: Enfish. Analysis by Gene Phifer and Simon Hayward 2.5 Business Process Fusion Definition: The portal provides the user interface for a new generation of composite applications, consuming services and components from line-of-business (LOB) and collaborative applications. The portal can also use portlet-to-portlet communication to facilitate composite applications directly. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Five to 10 years. 6 June

7 Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Some independent software vendors (ISVs) have strategies and are shipping. Platform ISVs have been slower to engage. More Web services standards in areas such as security are needed. Business Impact Areas: The creation of new composite applications consisting of LOB application components and collaborative components. Selected Vendors: PeopleSoft, Plumtree, SAP and Siebel Systems. Analysis by Simon Hayward 2.6 Open-Source Portals Definition: Open-source software that provides the portal framework is available. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Open-source portal frameworks, such as Jetspeed and Zope, have been available for years, but have gotten little traction. Business Impact Areas: Enterprises looking for free software to customize their portal frameworks. Analysis by Nikos Drakos and Ray Valdes 2.7 XML-Based Multichannel Output and Interaction Definition: Access to devices is provided by an abstraction layer that hides the complexities of device interaction from the portal developer. The most-basic capability is the ability to render content through XSLT transforms to serve many channels and devices. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: There are no standards. Few enterprises, even those with a content management system in place, are publishing to channels other than the Web and paper. Business Impact Areas: Access to portals from any client device, with differences abstracted from developers. Selected Vendors: Some content management and portal vendors. Analysis by Gene Phifer, Mark Gilbert, Lou Latham and Rita Knox 2.8 Smart Enterprise Suite Definition: The convergence of portal, content management and collaboration support into a single integrated product offering. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Growing interest from customers and vendors. Business Impact Areas: Much better information access across the enterprise. Lower total cost of ownership. A platform for collaboration, content management, information retrieval and business intelligence. 6 June

8 Selected Vendors: BroadVision, Computer Associates (CA), Hummingbird, IBM, Oracle, Plumtree, SAP, Sun and Vignette Analysis by Gene Phifer, Mark Gilbert, Simon Hayward and French Caldwell 2.9 Advanced Web Services in Portals Definition: Portals that support advanced Web services standards, such as those for security, transactions and Web services choreography. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Five to 10 years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: More Web services standards needed. Business Impact Areas: Portal interoperability across vendor families. Analysis by Ray Valdes 3.0 At the Peak 3.1 Java Specification Request 170 Definition: Java Community process specifications for making content management and portals more open to integration. Portals will access and manage content using the Java Specification Request (JSR) 170 standard. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: JSR 170 will be completed by year-end Business Impact Areas: Allows standards-based access to content, enabling easier integration. Analysis by Mark Gilbert and Gene Phifer 3.2 APS Definition: The convergence of application server, integration suite and portal in a single, integrated product offering. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Some vendors still don't offer APSs. Business Impact Areas: Better integration of components, single point of support, price breaks. Analysis by Yefim Natis, Massimo Pezzini and Gene Phifer 3.3 Web Services for Remote Portals and JSR 168 Definition: Portlets will be accessed via standard mechanisms: JSR 168 for the invocation of local portlets, and Web Services for Remote Portals (WSRP) for the invocation of remote portlets. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Both standards will be completed by year-end 2003, and code supporting both will ship by early Business Impact Areas: Standard portlets enable easier integration and a third-party market for portlets. 6 June

9 Analysis by Ray Valdes 3.4 Virtual Content Repositories Definition: Portals and content management systems that abstract access to and management of a wide variety of Web content, documents and digital assets. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: A few vendors support virtual content repositories, but most don't. There are concerns regarding security and the ability to maintain versioning. Adoption of JSR 170 should drive adoption. Business Impact Areas: Easier integration of content into portal. Selected Vendors: Context Media, Day, Venetica and Vignette Analysis by Mark Gilbert, Karen Shegda and Debra Logan 3.5 Process Portals Definition: Portals focused on business process enablement. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Obsolete before Plateau. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Process portals are mostly marketing hype, since a good enterprise portal provides process support. Business Impact Areas: Access to business processes in portal. Analysis by Gene Phifer 3.6 Basic Web Services Support in Portals Definition: Portals consume Web services, using basic Web services standards, such as SOAP, UDDI, WSDL and XML. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Less than two years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Portal products started consuming Web services in late Business Impact Areas: Easier integration of applications. Analysis by Ray Valdes 3.7 Federated Portals Within Vendor Families Definition: Portal products from the same vendor can be deployed in a federated network that enables interoperability and sharing of resources. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Less than two years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Many vendors support federated portals within the family, but provide a limited set of interoperability features. Business Impact Areas: Architectures supporting multiple portals within an enterprise. 6 June

10 Selected Vendors: IBM, Plumtree Software and Vignette. Analysis by David Gootzit 3.8 Contextual Personalization Definition: Portal delivers different personalized views based on contextual attributes, such as device, bandwidth, time, location and task at hand. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Multiple vendors deliver this, but few have implemented a flexible model. Business Impact Areas: Targeted marketing, more-relevant delivery of portal content. Selected Vendors: ATG, BroadVision, IBM and Vignette Analysis by Gene Phifer 4.0 Sliding Into the Trough 4.1 Advanced Integration in Portals Definition: Integration of complex applications can be accomplished via integration suites or integration brokers. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Less than two years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Advanced integration is frequently accomplished through partnerships with integration vendors, with loose coupling between the portal and the integration tool. Business Impact Areas: Less brittle integration of LOB applications. Selected Vendors: Tibco. Analysis by Nikos Drakos 4.2 Integrated Content Management Definition: Content management features are integrated directly into the portal product. Will be replaced by the SES. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Obsolete before Plateau. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Most vendors integrate with content management via portlets. Some vendors implement their own content management technologies, although, in some cases, these are rudimentary. Business Impact Areas: Single method of managing content, supplied by portal. Selected Vendors: Vignette. Analysis by Gene Phifer and Mark Gilbert 6 June

11 4.3 Integrated Collaboration Definition: Collaboration features are integrated directly into the portal product. Will be replaced by the SES. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Obsolete before Plateau. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Many vendors integrate collaboration features, but most of these features are low-end. Business Impact Areas: A single set of collaborative components supplied by the portal. Analysis by Gene Phifer and Simon Hayward 4.4 Portlets Definition: Portlets provide the primary integration mechanism for portals. These low-level, point-to-point components usually access application programming interfaces, URLs, or Structured Query Language (SQL) statements. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Less than two years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Portlets are the dominant integration model for portals, but can be problematic for the integration of complex, LOB applications. Business Impact Areas: Simplified integration of content and applications, along with a method of displaying results in personalized manner. Analysis by Gene Phifer 4.5 Mobile Access to Portals Definition: Access to portals by mobile devices. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Mobile access to portals is available in most portal products, but the user experience is usually unacceptable. Business Impact Areas: Enhanced communications. Analysis by Gene Phifer 5.0 Entering the Plateau 5.1 Role-Based Personalization Definition: Portal delivers different personalized views based on the role of the user or other static attributes, such as business unit. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Less than two years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: This original personalization feature is commonly used in enterprise portals. Business Impact Areas: More-relevant delivery of portal content. Analysis by Gene Phifer 6 June

12 5.2 Basic Search Definition: Portals deliver a search feature, frequently via a version of a search engine produced by an original equipment manufacturer (OEM). Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: Less than two years. Justification for Hype Cycle Position/Adoption Speed: Portals have delivered built-in search features since the birth of the portal product market. Business Impact Areas: Provides information retrieval. Analysis by Nikos Drakos 6.0 Conclusion Portal technologies continue to mature rapidly. Some technologies are on the verge of enabling rapid change in the portal product market, especially the standards related to integration and interoperability, such as JSR 168, JSR 170 and WSRP. The enterprise portal will continue to see significant use. The maturation of the portal ecosystem will provide solutions to such portal issues as federation and interoperability, as well as enable new functionality. 6 June

13 Appendix A: Hype Cycle Definitions Technology Trigger: A breakthrough, public demonstration, product launch or other event that generates significant press and industry interest. Peak of Inflated Expectations: During this phase of excessive enthusiasm and unrealistic projections, a flurry of well-publicized activity by technology leaders results in some successes, but more failures, as the technology is pushed to its limits. The only enterprises making money are conference organizers and magazine publishers. Trough of Disillusionment: Because the technology does not live up to its overly inflated expectations, it rapidly becomes unfashionable. Media interest wanes, except for a few cautionary tales. Slope of Enlightenment: Focused experimentation and solid hard work by an increasingly diverse range of enterprises lead to a true understanding of the technology's applicability, risks and benefits. Commercial, off-the-shelf methodologies and tools ease the development process. Plateau of Productivity: The real-world benefits of the technology are demonstrated and accepted. Tools and methodologies are increasingly stable as they enter their second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market. Approximately 30 percent of the technology's target audience has adopted or is adopting the technology as it enters the Plateau. Time to Plateau/Adoption Speed: The time required for the technology to reach the Plateau of Productivity. 6 June

14 Appendix B: Acronym Key APS CA ISV LOB OEM SES WSRP application platform suite Computer Associates independent software vendors line-of-business original equipment manufacturer smart enterprise suite Web Services for Remote Portals 6 June