Enterprise Information Portals: From search engines to knowledge management

Knowledge Management enables members of an enterprise to act by providing t hem with decision-relevant information supporting their intelligent process ing of information. A knowledge management tool of growing importance are E nterprise Information Portals (EIP). We first sketch the development of por tals in the context of the growth of the World-Wide Web (WWW). Next, we dis cuss the differences be tween web portals and EIP and distinguish different types of enterprise portals. We describe a set of core functionalities of enterprise portals and present a 5-tier architecture that comprises the key components of a portal. Finally, we discuss organizational issues in intro ducing portals in an enterprise and sketch the road ahead from portals towa rds an ubiquitous personalized information supply.