IBM announced a new portal server for departments eager to start a small portal project and then build and expand on their initial technology investment. WebSphere Portal Server serves as the software foundation for building applications and services that reside within a portal, best known as a common entry point for business users who need to share information regardless of where the information resides.

The new portal server offering simplifies the creation and delivery of portal components by leveraging service-oriented architecture (SOA), an approach that reuses a company's existing technology systems to more closely align them with a company's business goals, resulting in greater efficiencies, cost savings and productivity. For example, a people finder or awareness feature found in instant messaging products such as Lotus Sametime can be added to a call center application to help match a returning customer with a previously-known customer service representative.

Portal Server leverages a Web 2.0 AJAX-based interface that can help portal users accomplish more with fewer clicks while also improving portal performance. Included in the server are standards-based applications using popular file formats to deliver web content through Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds.

Additional new features of WebSphere Portal Server include:
-- Easier integration with applications such as Oracle, SAP and BEA, based on IBM's open standards strategy.

-- Access to nearly 1,000 business partner applications available at IBM's Portal Catalog at: http://catalog.lotus.com/wps/portal/portal as well as popular collaboration portlets, including My Work, which provides access to Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes and IBM Lotus Domino business collaboration software and IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and Sametime Instant Messaging; My Vertical News, which provides the top headlines from MarketWatch's array of general, business and industry news
categories; and People Finder, which provides a way to quickly locate employees based on name, current job or organizational context.

-- Advanced personalization and customization features, such as the use of new rules for business users to show or hide pages to help businesses improve team productivity. In addition, portal server offers new navigation tools with drag and drop capabilities to dynamically rearrange page layouts.