Enterprise Information Portal

This is similar to ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). In EIP, the thrust is given to information processes.

Enterprise Information Portals (EIP), aim to offer a single, uniform point from which all of an enterprise’s data sources can be accessed.

The term ‘data sources’ encompasses

 structured data (databases, Lotus Notes, etc.) 
 unstructured data (e-mails, files, archives, etc.)

It also includes the data

resulting from specific processes and enterprise applications (ERP and CRM tools, etc.).

Today, the EIP market is thriving and there are several vendors who are involved in creating an ability to fulfill an enterprises information needs.

These vendors fall seven major categories. This number of categories is due to the fact that the enterprise portal, as a web application, must be capable of integrating a large number of functionalities within a user's workspace.

Some links:

http://www.business2.com/webguide/0,1660,6848,00.html http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200110/eip_10_03_01a.html http://www.cutter.com/itreports/eip.html http://www.kmworld.com/publications/whitepapers/portals/bolds.htm