Enterprise information portals

Information is now coming centre stage in companies anxious to maintain their competitive advantage in the dot.com economy as electronic business-to-business exchanges rapidly emerge. The technical issues of being able to search across a wide range of different database and document types are now being solved through enterprise information portal applications (EIP). often referred to as corporate portals. These provide users with access to intemal and external information resources through a customisable Web browser interface. This paper outlines the generic features of EIP applications, and categorises the different approaches being taken by EIP vendors. many of whom are adapting software developed for document management and information retrieval purposes. Emerging roles for information professionals in the deployment of EIP applications are discussed.