Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63446
Technology The Power of Portals Online portals, which are centralized, customizable areas on the Internet, are quickly becoming a premier method for manag- ing vast amounts of informa- tion easily and efficiently. Portals already have been adopted by corporations such as Ford Motor Company, Staples, and Charles Schwab. Now, schools such as Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Business in Culver City, California, are follow- ing the corporate lead in building an online information portal for their campus communities. In an age when it's easy to suffer because it is already used by so many corporations. Organizations such as Ford Motor Company and the U.S. Air Force use Plumtree for their corporate portals," explains Griffy-Brown. "It made sense to choose a prod- uct that was completely con- versant with the marketplace and that would grow and evolve with it." As its needs change, the to help them manage that informa- tion," she says. Consumers have long used from information overload, custom - iz able online "portals" have emerged as the next wave of information management, says Charla Griffy- Brown, director of the Center for Innovative Resources. "We must become more responsible for teach- ing people how to navigate the information deluge that technology creates. A portal is an effective tool Can You Pronounce 'Antiferromagnetic'? A new microchip from IBM now offers maximum memory capabilities at microscopic levels. The aptly nicknamed "pixie dust" hard drive disk is coated with a layer of a metal called ruthenium—a metal much like platinum—only three atoms thick. The new disk is called antiferromagnetically coupled (AFC) media, and can store four times more data than a standard chip. Computers equipped with IBM's new disk, called Deskstar 120 GXP, will boast memory capabilities of up to 120 gigabytes. 56 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2002 Internet portals such as MyYahoo and MyExcite, explains Griffy- Brown. Now software companies are creating products for businesses and business schools to use to make the power of portals work for them. They are creating private portals, or "intranets," which are password-pro- tected online areas. Such intranets are inaccessible to outside visitors, but allow authorized users to pass freely from intranet to Internet. The Graziadio School of Business launched GraziadioNet last year after two years of intense preparation. Once the decision was made to adopt the portal technology, its deployment went incredibly quickly, says Griffy-Brown. After interviewing a number of vendors who responded to its request for proposal, the school finally turned to Spectria, a technology consulting firm based in California, to help direct its efforts. Portal software from Plumtree, a corporate portal software provider in San Francisco, eventually was select- ed for the project. "We chose Plumtree software because of its inherent flexibility, and gets," modules with different func- tionalities. For example, the school added "eRoom," which allows employees to gather online to com- plete projects. It has become "a vir- tual classroom, where students and faculty can share documents, meet online, and alert each other about deadlines or project changes," explains Griffy-Brown. In addition, school can add to the portal what Plumtree calls "gad- D ATA B I T GraziadioNet allows users to access e- mail and course information, create to-do lists, keep per- sonal calendars and contact lists, add favorite links, conduct intranet and Internet searches, and create storage areas to receive user-specified news and information. In addition, many administrative tasks, such as grading and scheduling, now have been moved to the portal. Making the transition from the Online retail sales in Latin America are expected to reach $1.28 billion by the end of 2001, more than doubling the $540 million spent online there in 2000, according to Boston Consulting Group. school's traditional systems to GraziadioNet was not a simple endeavor, says Griffy-Brown. "It took a great deal of advance plan- ning. We began communicating with STEVEN HUNT/GETTY IMAGES