WHEN THE FIRST wave of EIP (enterprise information portal) technology hit in 1998, business and IT leaders considered it an extension of data warehousing. Those first-generation EIPs blended Web technologies with enterprise information to enable executives to better manage decision-support and content-management functions.
Since then, EIPs have proven useful in other ways. Initially seen as control points for data and content, EIPs now act as access centers that tie together people and data. By linking e-mail, groupware, workflow, collaboration, and other mission-critical applications to portals, EIPs can better support the virtual enterprise.
In the next three years, EIP technologies will likely converge with Web-based, services-based architectures. Indeed, the technology is on the cusp of an evolution that may well change the acronym from "EIP" to "ESP" (enterprise services portal), which better represents the next generation of the technology.
These services-based architectures do not refer to ASPs (application service providers), although ASPs may well host the services-based architectures of many e-businesses. Services-based architectures turn business-process functions into components. When deployed, these components -- typically served on the middle tier -- can be executed by human interaction or, more likely, by intelligent-agent technology.
To understand the services-based architectures that will likely influence EIP technology, business leaders should adopt a mind-set similar to that of an object-oriented software developer. If you can view your business processes in the context of small, modular objects that can be shared and reused by authorized users or intelligent agents, you are well on the way toward understanding the business value of coupling services-based architectures with EIP technology.
Future EIPs will provide platforms on which business processes can be carried out as services, leveraging Web connectivity and peer-to-peer architectures. Turning business processes into modular objects in a services-based framework will offer valuable benefits. For example, a business could introduce a new product without having to retool existing technology because the services-based business-process modules will be reused to add that new product.
The same holds true for business partners and EAI (enterprise application integration). When investing in a services-based architecture, a company can use an EIP as the mesh to add or remove business partners as market conditions change. By reusing services-based business processes, the cost and time needed to integrate with new business partners or to make changes with existing partners will be reduced significantly.
Certainly, EIPs will continue to provide value in the areas of decision support, content management, and collaboration. But business leaders will gain even more from future EIPs and other middle-tier technologies, which will allow them to view the world as a collection of reusable business-process objects.
