Report: IBM Worldwide Market Share Leader in Web Portal Software

6,000 Organizations From Public, Private Sectors Rely on IBM Portal Software for Everything From Employee Communications to Web 2.0 Mashups to Saving Lives



ARMONK, N.Y. - IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that analyst firm Gartner, Inc. has ranked IBM as the worldwide market share leader in the enterprise portal software market based on total software revenue for 2007.(1)

With more than 6,000 portal customers such as Cisco Systems, Inc., Duke Medicine, the Australian government, and the Gauteng Disaster Management Center in South Africa, IBM is the worldwide enterprise portal software market leader for the seventh consecutive year.

Portal software enables external and internal Web sites to deliver information, applications and business processes in a personalized way to individuals. Increasingly, Web 2.0 technologies are enabling Web portals to provide employees with the content, social connections and other resources to solve business problems.

According to the independent report, the enterprise portals software market grew 16.5 percent in 2007 to approximately $1.1 Billion.(1)

“At IBM, we’ve designed our portal software with easy-to-use Web 2.0 technologies that put people in control of IT, not the other way around,” said Larry Bowden, vice president, IBM Portals and Mashups. “Individuals at work and at home increasingly want to gain insight, publish content, and access services on their own.”

IBM’s portal software is used for a variety of purposes -- everything from communications, education, health, emergency and municipal services, increasingly with Web 2.0 technologies such as mashups, composite applications and text tagging.

The Australian government uses IBM WebSphere Portal software as the backbone for the delivery of Centrelink’s information and on-line services through its ’customer portal’ web site. Approximately 6.5 million customers, or about one third of Australia’s population access Centrelink regularly for a variety of services and information which is delivered on behalf of a number of government agencies.

On-line services via the Centrelink portal has more than 40,000 authenticated visitors daily. It also provides visitors personalized news via the IBM Web Content Management software.

“We’re pleased with the results of IBM’s portal software for our customer and other portal websites. This technology, delivered as part of our IT Refresh program, gives our customers a personalized view of the services they can access and perform, as well as other capabilities such as advanced search, aggregated news and single sign-on,” said Centrelink Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology, John Wadeson.

Centrelink has developed five enterprise portals as part of their IT Refresh program for customers, staff, business, government and emergency management. The Centrelink customer portal is available at http://myaccount.centrelink.gov.au.

As 80 percent of American adults who have internet access seek health information on-line regularly, IBM portal software is also being used by several medical organizations worldwide including Duke Medicine. The information patients most commonly seek is about specific diseases and medical conditions, medical treatments and procedures, diet, nutrition, vitamins, and nutritional supplements.

The Duke Medicine portal allows patients to schedule an appointment, access personal health profiles, account billing and insurance information and other data and services. “In order to build deeper relationships with patients, we needed a unified communication tool that would bring together different data for a holistic view,” said Asif Ahmad, vice president, Diagnostic Services and CIO, Duke University Health System and Duke University Medical Center. “Through the HealthView Portal, Duke Medicine is improving patient satisfaction and safety by giving patients and clinicians the information they need to work together for better health outcomes.”

Additionally, organizations worldwide, like the Gauteng Disaster Management Center in South Africa, are using IBM portal technology behind the scenes to help them manage emergency services. A team in the Gauteng Province, which is made up of Johannesburg and several other cities and municipalities, uses IBM’s portal-based disaster and emergency management solution known as Virtual Operation Center, to support its 10 million residents around the clock.

“This IBM portal software is absolutely critical because our on-line center is used to protect and save lives,” said Colin Deiner of the Gauteng Disaster Management Center. For more information, visit http://www.gautengonline.gov.za.

Information technology companies are also using this technology. Cisco is implementing IBM WebSphere Portal software to enhance the internal and customer user experience. For more information visit http://www.cisco.com.

IBM has recently offered customers the opportunity to experiment with the latest version of its WebSphere Portal software and gain hands-on experience free through IBM Lotus Greenhouse. Lotus Greenhouse is a Web site where anyone can register and try out this portal software as well as IBM’s new Mashup Center, IBM Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, and Lotus Sametime. This gives customers a safe environment to try the technology and evaluate IBM portal potential without installing anything in their own environment.

IBM will ship the latest version of its new IBM WebSphere Portal software, version 6.1, this month. Designed to securely combine information form both enterprise and the Web, it has a variety of expanded Web 2.0 features to help people be more productive and find key information faster. Its live text feature allows a user to click on text, in context of the business process being used, and see supporting information right there related to the job at hand. For example, a sales woman clicks on the address of her customer and a map with directions appears; or she clicks on the name of the customer and an electronic business card pops up.

IBM is releasing the new software after gathering feedback from 4,000 beta testers. As a result of the testing, the company has made several improvements, making it a more powerful choice to help teams collaborate and innovate.