Corporate Portals and Ebusiness Integration

by Mark M. Davydov

This text investigates Enterprise Integration Portals (EIPs), and discusses the best way to use them for the success of a business. It explains the fundamental structure of the ebusiness environment... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0071371796
• ISBN13: 9780071371797
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 268 Pages
• Weight: 1.17 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

An opinion of Chief Enterprise Architect

There's plenty of hype, and lots of information, but no common understanding - even now in December of 2002 - as to what constitutes a corporate portal, most importantly, from a technology perspective. After reading this book, I strongly feel it does shed some light. It helped me to understand that the label "portal," as broadly applied, has two levels of meanings-one specific (application oriented) and one conceptual (architecture oriented), and that focusing on the conceptual meaning is very important to get enterprise integration efforts under control. The #1 book ("MUST READ") for a serious architect!!!

The reality check

Davydov's book is exactly what our application development organization needed to ramp up its portal strategy. This book is a voice talking beyond the "silver-bullet" hype of all kinds of Internet technologies to the bigger picture. I'a a seasoned software engineer and project manager, and this book helped me to get a firm grasp on the problem/opportunity/goal before jumping down to the details.

On-the-money perspective

I had an opportunity to read Davydov's book over the weekend. Highly interesting on-the-money perspective. The need for enterprises to move more QUICKLY and COLLABORATE with both customers and suppliers has never been greater. The concept of corporate portals has proven to be one of the main enabling technologies to accomodate such a need. But technology by itself is not an answer. It's necessary to align technology and business strategies to be successful here. Unfortunately, in real life, it can be very difficult to explain to non-technical managers the business rationale---as opposed to the technical rationale---for corporate portals in general and what role do they play in enterprise integration efforts in particular. Davydov's book on corporate portals aims to make this task a lot easier. The book goes well beyond introducing some basic concepts of portals and explaining related technologies. It provides useful information and advice to hopefully have gotten to its readers before they are experiencing problems so that they could be proactive with their e-business strategies. One of the best e-business oriented books I came across lately.

One of the Best

There are several excellent books which discuss essentially the same subjects. This is one of the best among them. As we all know, the WWW offers faster and better connectivity and interactivity than were previously possible. Hence the importance of portals. Hence (in turn) the importance of the scope and degree of integration which they facilitate. (Those who question the importance of integration are urged to visit Dot-Com Boot Hill and read the epitaphs.) Davydov has extensive prior experience which helps to explain the wealth of information he provides and his practical approach to it. What I find especially interesting about this book is the fact that, as Davydov explains, the strategies which so many "Fortune 100" companies (e.g. Cisco Systems, Dell Computer, GE) use effectively are also appropriate to small-to-midsize organizations. Which book to buy? There are several to select from. Consider this: You can purchase 4-5 of the books for about the same cost as one hour of an author's time if you retained that author as a consultant. Formulate what is (in effect) an RFP which includes precise specifications as to what you seek to accomplish, then compare and contrast ("apples" ONLY with "apples") the responses of the 4-5 books to those specifications. Cross-reference. Consider using a grid. Whatever. For those organizations now involved or about to become involved in e-business, portals may well be the difference between their success and failure. Your competitors also buy and read books. Put Davydov and others to work immediately.

Corporate information, distribution,and education made easy

Corporate Portals provides you with a clear, practical, and detailed picture of all the technical and organizational issues involved in rating a corporate portal solution. Collins defines and clarifies the main benefits on a corproate portal and the explores each in depth: 1. Better dicision-making capabilities through access to aggragated information residing in many different systems and physical locations. 2. A consistent view of ylour organization that allows employees to easily find information through a single, user-friendly interface. 3. Sophisticated information orgainzation and search capabilities 4. Direct access to corporate knowledge and resources. 5. Direct links to reports, analyses, queries, relative data, and knowledge expertsThank you, this is exactly what I needed to begin planning my intranet upgrade to a portal solution.