On Fri, Nov 01, 2002 at 10:40:44AM -0500, Peter Dresslar wrote: > The easy comparison that comes to my mind is: > > Interwoven's TeamSite is *not* a portal. So whatever a portal is > Vignette will do it and Interwoven won't. Maybe this gives us a better > idea of what a portal is in the first place. > > Regards, > Peter Dresslar > > ...unless, of course, you pick up the TeamPortal piece... ;-)
My practical definitions: I use the term "CMS" to encompass primarily content editing, content layout, content placement (including ad rotation, if needed), site design (template design), content scheduling, collaborative editing features (workflow, versioning, access controls), and export of content from the system (syndication, backup, content delivery). Content delivery may be part of this, but only in that a CMS has data structures that it manages and something needs to be able to interpret those data structures to present meaningful content to the end user. So, there might be a delivery export process in the CMS that talks to a CDS (content delivery system, which might be an app server or something), or the CMS might just drop static HTML pages off in the docroot. Dynamic sites may include more application functionality that may tie back into the CMS API, but then you're not just talking about CMS. I think it's useful to make a distinction between processes (if not servers) that manage content, and those that deliver content (or filter it). To me, a "Portal" is a particular kind of content delivery mechanism that aggregates content from many sources, which may just be different channels or categories in your CMS. That term also covers, confusingly, the popular layouts for those pages. I mean, software is software - there's nothing to say that a CMS can't incorporate Portal features. If it does, that doesn't make it less a CMS, it makes it more something else. -- - Adam ----- Adam Fields, Managing Partner, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Surgam, Inc. is a technology consulting firm with strong background in delivering scalable and robust enterprise web and IT applications. http://www.adamfields.com -- http://cms-list.org/ trim your replies for good karma.