WebSphere Revolution

With brand momentum building, another WebSphere product was in the making WebSphere Portal. Once again this product arose directly from actual customer need. IBM had been working with several large WebSphere clients and they were all facing the same problem. They all really liked WebSphere but they struggled with how to enable users to get from one Web application program to another. They also wanted to control which applications each user was able to use—that is, they wanted access control. Several groups within IBM had discovered this customer need at around the same time. In fact, there were seven different IBM organizations that had each started its own development effort to address it. So late in 2000, Steve Mills asked Larry Bowden, then VP of Portal Solutions and Mike Rhodin, then IBM VP of Pervasive Computing, to bring the seven disparate development efforts together. It was time to bring all of the best ideas together and build a single product and that product was WebSphere Portal Server which was announced in January 2001 and shipped the following March. Like WebSphere Commerce, WebSphere Portal Server was built on top of WebSphere Application Server and provided access control and a consistent way for users to work with multiple Web application programs at the same time, significantly improving user productivity. It was a very welcome change. Early IBM WebSphere Business Partner Prolifics Founded in 1978 in New York City, Prolifics first specialized in building high-performance transactional systems for many of the biggest firms on Wall Street. In early 2000, Prolifics formed a strategic alliance with IBM and began to market its ISV technology named “Panther for IBM WebSphere” which was used to modernize legacy systems and build WebSphere applications. By the end of the year, Prolifics had also migrated the National Business Center from BEA WebLogic to IBM WebSphere Application Server—one of the first competitive win-backs from BEA to IBM. Today, the National Business Center remains a model IBM shop that uses IBM products from most every IBM brand. And today Prolifics continues to be an awardwinning IBM Business Partner helping its customers leverage WebSphere for SOA. Selected for its consulting excellence, Prolifics has a Level 5 ranking—IBM’s highest on its technical expertise scale—and is the recipient of the IBM Award for Overall Technical Excellence. Prolifics has also been honored with the IBM Business Partner Leadership Award, the 5-Star Partner Award, the Best Portal Solution Award, and the IMPACT SOA Solution Award. 2001 The broadway show “The Producers” takes a record 12 trophies at the Tony Awards. 2001 The first artificial heart is implanted in a human patient. More on the Web • Prolifics Website • National Business Center case study 31 http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/mmframe?prid=385772&attachid=735939 http://www.prolifics.com/nbc.htm

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of WebSphere Revolution

WebSphere Revolution Table of Contents The Rise of Internet Business WebSphere Takes the Stage WebSphere Application Server Evolves Beyond the Application Server WebSphere and On Demand Business New Flexibility through SOA An Eye Toward the Future

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