Review: Plumtree Corporate Portal 5.0

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In many ways, Plumtree Corporate Portal is one of the granddaddies of the genre, providing one of the first products that clearly fit the EIP category. However, its been almost two years since the last major release of the Plumtree portal, and, given the speed of change in portal technology, the product was actually starting to look like a grandfather.

But with the release of Corporate Portal 5.0, Plumtree has pulled off an impressive rejuvenation with a completely revamped interface, improved customization and integration options, and strong support for modern Web services standards—all of which serve to put Plumtree Corporate Portal back among the top products in the category.

Like the rest of the Java server-based portals, Plumtree Corporate Portal 5.0 runs on Windows and Unix servers and works with a variety of application servers, including BEAs WebLogic, IBMs WebSphere and the open-source Tomcat. However, Plumtree has not completely tossed away its Microsoft-centric roots, also offering an ASP. Net version.

Plumtree Corporate Portal 5.0s administration and user interfaces are the same, with different options and applications available according to a users rights. The interface of Version 5.0 is very different from the interfaces of previous versions and took a little getting used to. Its very interactive and a little intimidating with its many options for carrying out different tasks.

But you certainly cant say that the administration interface isnt capable. A wide variety of management options are available, providing almost-limitless configuration and extensibility options. In addition, options for building various communities and subportals have been greatly enhanced, making it possible to create almost any necessary combination for different company and user group requirements.

Also new in this version are object migration features that make staging and development servers work more efficiently.

We were very impressed by the extensive user rights, roles and access control options provided by Corporate Portal 5.0. These features made it possible to define detailed rights management options that not only changed based on users, objects and communities within the portal, but also applied to Web services being consumed.

While the standards support in Plumtree Corporate Portal makes it simple for developers to build advanced portlets, the product also makes it possible for anyone to create a wide variety of standard portlets, Web services and applications. In addition, leveraging much of its legacy functionality, Plumtree Corporate Portal 5.0 has some of the best knowledge and document management features available in an EIP.

Pricing for the entire Plumtree portal suite starts at $90,000 for 250 users. Variable pricing is also available based on components purchased.