Vignette Software Corp. and Bowstreet Inc. separately this week are unwrapping updated versions of enterprise portal products with added support for the JSR 168 portlet interoperability standard.
Vignette on Monday launched its Vignette Application Portal 7.0, featuring full JSR 168 compliance, a set of intranet applications, and increased internationalization support.
JSR 168, approved by the Java Community Process in the fall, is designed to enable interoperability between portlets and portals by defining a set of APIs for aggregation, personalization, presentation, and security, according to JCP officials.
Application Portal 7.0 has been certified on the Sun Microsystems Test and Compatibility Kit for compliance with JSR 168. In addition, Vignette offers plug-ins for the major Integrated Development environments to let developers create JSR 168 portlets within their IDE of choice and then deploy them within Vignette’s portal.
As portals become a fundamental piece of enterprise architected, standards compliance is becoming important, according to Ed Anuff, vice-president of portal and collaboration solutions at Vignette.
Aside from portlet interoperability, a key impact of JSR 168 compliance is that it makes it easier to train developers to create portlets for any portal, Anuff said.
“Portlet interoperability is important, but the more immediate benefit this year, this month is how it can dramatically lower training costs and (provide) a wider pool of portal developers,” he said.
Version 7.0 also introduces a suite of intranet applications aimed for rapid deployment and user productivity. The applications include HR Self-service, Recruiting, Surveys, IT Asset Management, Sales Dashboards, FAQs, and Event Calendars. New internationalization and localization capabilities for portal administrative consoles allow administrators in multilingual regions to access a shared portal console that is localized to each administrator’s language, according to Vignette officials.
In a change of go-to-market strategy, Vignette Application Portal 7.0 can be downloaded now for a free trial evaluation.
On Tuesday Bowstreet will unveil its Portlet Factory Version 5.8, designed to enable rapid creation of JSR 168 compliant portlets. In addition, Bowstreet formed a JSR 168 validation program to ensure compatibility with other vendors’ portals. Other members of the program include Sun Microsystems Inc., IBM Corp., and Plumtree Software Inc.