Sorry to take so long to respond to your message.
VIAD has a problem in that it is one of the few companies in that list that are almost exclusively focused on portals. Most of the others have substantial offerings outside the portal area, mostly in BI, DM or reporting of some sort. Their portal offerings can capitalize on the existing IP, and very often reflect the company's focus prior to becoming a "portal vendor."
Agreed. BI and DM companies are moving to offer EIPs.
Realistically, I expect that most of the standalones will disappear. The portal that you are most likely to use is the one that is most tightly integrated with the applications that are already most important to you. If your business is SAP-centric, you're going to focus on an SAP solution (mySAP.com), perhaps purchasing extensions to allow it to work with other software as well. If you're an Oracle shop you're likely to buy whatever ORCL comes up with in the portal area, etc.
I believe that many companies will decide to choose a 'best of breed' portal solution and will not use EIP offerings from SAP, ORCL, or other ERP or CRM portal offerings. In addition, many ERP & CRM companies license their EIP software from VIAD, SQSW, PLUM or other vendors. The same is true for the BI & DM vendors.
In other words, I doubt that there will ever be a "dominant EIP vendor." There will be dominant enterprise software vendors, which will package an EIP. And there will be lots of niche plays, selling to limited numbers of users with unique needs, just as there are lots and lots of BI and reporting solutions today.
To be sure, consolidation is going to happen, but I doubt we will see a distinct EIP market in five years. It'll be a feature you expect with whatever enterprise software you buy.
Many corporations choose ERP and CRM solutions from different vendors. Financials many also be different. For example, a company may choose Oracle ERP, with PeopleSoft HR and Financials, combined with SEBL CRM. In addition, many companies have developed their own applications with RDBMS as their foundation.
In that case, which EIP do you use? The solution may be to choose a flexible EIP that can integrate information from these sources and provide BI & DM facilities. Hummingbird is focused on serving this market while other BI & DM vendors have integrated their products with the pure play portal vendors. I see more companies following Hummingbird's lead and creating EIP companies that are independent of ERP, CRM, and the DBMS companies. Given the early state of the EIP market, one of these companies could emerge as a 'gorilla' of the market.
Feedback from anyone on this topic would be appreciated. |
