IBM WebSphere gets 23 new portal partners

Continuing its effort to make its WebSphere portal as flexible as it can, IBM Wednesday announced that 23 companies, from content management software makers to search vendors, have joined its portlet partner program to create out-of the-box links to additional portal functions.

The 23 new companies join about 30 others already creating so-called portlets for the WebSphere portal. Portlets are chunks of application code that are embedded into the portal view and give users access to specific applications, resources and processes.

The idea, says Tim Thatcher, program director of portal solutions at IBM, is to enable portal users to hook in to existing applications or infrastructure they already have in place.

"That's a key tenet of our strategy: the recognition that portals don't go into a white space. They go into environments where there are other solutions that exist," he says. "We don't want to force customers into making particular decisions... So whether it's Web content management, or database, or directory, or security management, we want to be able to integrate with all of them."

The new portlet applications address business intelligence, content management, customer relationship management, e-commerce, enterprise resource planning, search and wireless. The portlets will be available within the next couple of months, Thatcher says.

The business partners joining the IBM Portlet Provider Offering are Amacis, AtHoc, BoostWorks, Convera, Divine, Ebase, FinGO, FirstRain, i2, Information Builders, IntellectExchange, MyBubble, Netsize, Orsus Solutions, paybox, Presence On Line, Quiver, Rapidigm, SwissRisk, Tamalpais Group, Tridion, Vignette and Xambo.

IBM WebSphere portal family