Gartner ranks IBM global leader in portal software

24 June 2008

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. According to the independent report, the enterprise portals software market grew 16.5 per cent in 2007 to approximately $1.1 billion.

With more than 6,000 portal customers such as Cisco Systems, Inc, Duke Medicine, the Australian government, and the Gauteng Disaster Management Centre 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.

"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.