Plumtree adds single sign-on to latest portal software

Plumtree on Monday unveiled the latest version of its portal software, featuring better integration with single sign-on technologies, support for SOAP and wireless capabilities.

The release continues the software maker's move towards providing a platform for enterprises to organize diverse digital resources and make them available from anywhere.

Plumtree Corporate Portal 4.5 is the first major revamp of Plumtree's software since it shipped version 4.0 last October. In the meantime, the software maker had released various updates, including tighter integration with SAP R/3. Version 4.5 is an overhaul that will provide enterprises greater integration both within the enterprise and out, according to Plumtree.

For example, instead of storing passwords within the portal framework to provide single sign-on capabilities, version 4.5 supports single sign-on technologies from vendors such as Netegrity and IBM and uses those technologies to pass security keys to the applications themselves. No passwords are stored within the portal framework, says Phil Soffer, Plumtree's senior product manager. Instead, the security keys are passed to portal gadgets, the software components that integrate applications into the portal.

As for tightening integration outside the enterprise, version 4.5 uses Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), an XML-based messaging protocol that lets applications communicate via the Web, to improve search capabilities. That means portal users can search across the Internet, databases and applications, without regard to platform or language.

"If you look forward to where we're taking this product, the whole architecture of the product will be based on Web services that communicate with each other based on HTTP," says Soffer.

That's where many portal vendors are heading as enterprises demand more application integration within the portal framework, says David Yockelson, senior VP and director at the Meta Group. A recent poll of 250 enterprises by the Meta Group found that 46% of respondents believe the most critical objective of an enterprise portal is application integration; 39% said it was knowledge management.

"That's a change," says Yockelson. "Last year the majority of intentions and instances [of portal implementation] were around knowledge management."

Plumtree's version 4.5 also makes it easier for users to create community areas, a feature that debuted in version 4.0. With the newest version, Plumtree can offer specific applications, for the sales department, for example, as a package of gadgets encased in XML, providing for easy implementation.

As for wireless, version 4.5 includes a wireless server, which delivers wireless-enabled gadgets to handheld devices in the appropriate format for that particular device.

TELUS, a Canadian telecommunications firm, is deploying the Plumtree portal to 26,000 employees and is beta testing version 4.5. The wireless server has allowed TELUS to cut costs because it removes the need to install separate wireless servers for each application it wants delivered to a wireless device, says Nadine Filice, ebusiness manager at TELUS.

Plumtree Corporate Portal 4.5 is available immediately and is priced per user, ranging between $150 and $600 per user, depending on features.

Contact Senior Writer Jennifer Mears

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