Technology vendors always paint a rosier picture than what reality otherwise proves. Ultimately, technology vendors want you to buy. That’s why free webinars are almost always sales pitches that have little to do with reality, and everything to do with selling you software and hardware.
Now, I really like the concept of portal software and solutions. I particularly like how portal solutions and content management systems (CMSs) are melding into a single solution. In fact I predict that a single hybrid solution will dominate the market place within a couple of years. These hybrid solutions are already being marketed by Microsoft, Vignette, Oracle and others.
In the meantime however, portals are really quite awful. I just had a chance to spend an hour navigating and surfing through an enterprise intranet portal at a large financial corporation. It is awful. Just awful.
Read my complete article Vendor perception versus reality: the state of portals (on Communitelligence.com)
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In the meantime, Microsoft Sharepoint is ready to be released. In fact, you can download beta version yourself and begin using it.
Here is are the Step by Step Instructions (with Screenshots) Office SharePoint Services B2TR to Release (SharePoint MVP).
Here are the license keys:
SharePoint Server Standard Trial: XJMKW-8T7PR-76XT6-RTC8G-VVWCQ
SharePoint Server
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