Portals and the Challenge of Simplifying Internet Business Use

The Internet promised a lot for enterprises from 1995. The Internet’s ubiquity offered intercompany connectivity (previously provided to corporations by Electronic Data Interchange) for businesses of every size. The business-to-business (B2B) trading exchange concept emerged, 10,000 B2B exchanges were anticipated. Early Internet investment then struck an unexpected hurdle: the Internet didn’t inherently support many of the key requirements for business transactions (such as reliability, confidentiality, integrity, authentication of parties). These requirements added to the cost and complexity of Internet investment. The dot.com stock market crash affected all Internetrelated initiatives. But while the B2B exchanges disappeared, other initiatives more aligned to user needs and the Internet’s architecture continued to grow. These included the enterprise portal, which supports the traditional single-business-centred customer relationship model, in contrast to the business disruptive B2B exchange model.