BackWeb Revs Portal Server

The 2.0 version provides offline access to applications and information aggregated through a company's portal or extranet

With the goal of providing offline access to disconnected portals, BackWeb Technologies Inc. announced today the second generation of its ProactivePortal Server. With the launch of ProactivePortal 2.0, BackWeb is also formally launching itself as a company.
The 2.0 version provides offline access to applications and information aggregated through a companys portal or extranet. ProactivePortal logs onto a portal on behalf of the user. The software then analyzes the HTML pages it receives and sends out OTML tags - BackWebs proprietary integration technology. The OTML determines what information needs to be taken offline, what doesnt, and where ProactivePortal needs to drill down through links to provide deeper information, like retrieving a full document for viewing offline. Information that ProactivePortal scrapes from a users portal pages is published to the BackWeb system where only new content is delivered to the user. BackWeb partners with a number of e-business software providers including SAP AG, IBM, and Baan to provide easy integration -- and offline access -- to the applications. "We are not a framework, we are a plug-in and compliment those existing technologies," said Eli Barkat, chairman and CEO of BackWeb, in San Jose, Calif. "This works two levels and ten levels down." ProactivePortal can be scheduled to go out to a users portal on either a time sensitive basis -- once a day, for example - or on an event basis Similar to synching a personal digital assistant, the ProactivePortal software can also be synched with a users portal when the user logs on to his or her system. The 2.0 version of Proactive Portal is available now. Pricing starts at $100 per seat.