Gartner recently released its latest magic quadrant (MQ) for horizontal portals. The details can be read in Josette Rigsby’s article, “Gartner’s Magic Quadrant For Horizontal Portals: Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Liferay Top Dogs.” Luckily, Rigsby provides some clarity on horizontal portals in layman’s terms:

It means that portals are platforms that organizations can use to develop their own specific portal implementations.

As in other industries, trends like mobile, social, cloud and user experience management are having a major impact. Vendors are adding new features and the line between portals and other types of platforms are blurring. Some vendors are using the evolution and opportunity to move away from the portal label and reinvent themselves in an attempt to disassociate themselves with the somewhat mixed history of the portal market.

The history of the portal market might include things like project death marches, products that never live up to expectations, and disappointing user adoption. Gartner’s rankings include vendors that meet certain guidelines, such as content management, at least 100 enterprise customers, and wide integration abilities. It will be interesting to see if Gartner’s rankings are well-received. When it comes to comprehensive content management, broad integration capabilities, and a flexible model, open source search should not be overlooked. LucidWorks is an industry leader in developing commercial-grade solutions for customers needing to tame their content and tackle Big Data sprawl.

Philip West, November 1, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.