Intranet Web Environment
With a framework built to handle the common intranet challenges related to authentication, single sign-on, and the deployment of applications in a unified environment, WebCenter makes sense as the foundation of an intranet environment.  A corporate intranet has a huge jump start with WebCenter. For anything that has already been built, chances are the portlet or SOA integration capabilities will lend themselves nicely to bringing it all into WebCenter.

The following is an example of a WebCenter site.  In this example, as shown in Figure 2, a user who is new to the company is working with an application that enables him to add dependents to his company insurance policy. Notice that the transaction is surrounded by additional context that helps the user, including:

New Hires Tasks, in the upper left corner, provide an activity guide that shows where the user is in the larger process of becoming acclimated to his new company. The user's next task is also identified. This type of process orchestration helps the user step through the entire multistep flow quickly and easily.

Task and process analytics let users know where they are in the process and how decisions are affecting them. In this case, the Task Analytics on the right show the total cost effect of the benefit choices made so far.

The Help Center on the bottom left provides an up-to-date FAQ for quick access to typical questions and a direct chat link to the Help Center where the user can ask additional questions not addressed by the FAQ. Again, no need for the user to leave the context of the transaction to get help.

Knowledge Exchange, on the bottom right, provides documentation relevant to the current task. These documents, stored in the corporate repository, give detailed advice on the different beneficiary and dependent scenarios applicable to the user.

Along with showing the ability to bring together custom applications, some of the features in this example leverage the Web 2.0 services we mentioned earlier to provide a richer user experience.

WebCenter and Oracle Application Server Portal
In terms of Oracle Portal, WebCenter is not a replacement, and as we understand it, there is a clear integration strategy between the two products.  Oracle says that Oracle Portal will continue to address the enterprise portal marketplace, which includes content-centric and federated portals, so that business developers will continue to build new solutions (in some cases, more effectively/efficiently) within the Oracle Portal product.  For example, self-service publishing, prototyping, and deployment can all happen smoothly in the Web browser with Portal, without the need for a Java development environment.  Since we are often asked about the integration between the two products, we are pleased to see that Oracle has already provided certified integrations between Oracle Portal and Oracle WebCenter.

Although WebCenter does open the door to more open standards, the investment in Portal can simply be extended by WebCenter if an organization so chooses.  Portlets and services can be built and used from Oracle WebCenter directly in Oracle Portal. Oracle Portal pages can be exposed as portlets and used directly in Oracle WebCenter.  Portal content can be used through Oracle’s JCR adapter to take advantage of existing content in new standards based applications.

Closing Thoughts
With WebCenter, Oracle continues to move in the right direction, embracing open software standards, solid enterprise architecture/framework, SOA concepts, and the latest in Web 2.0 technologies and services.   As with any new enterprise solution that enters the market, there can always be more.  But, based on our analysis and experiences working with the product since the beginning, we feel WebCenter has a promising and undeniable future. 

Rating
We rated Oracle WebCenter on a scale of 1 to 10, using the following criteria and allowing for equal weighting of each category. (These scores, as seen in Table 1, are based on the collective assessment of our product evaluation team.)

References
For further information regarding Oracle Portal and Oracle WebCenter, Oracle has also published a Statement of Direction (SOD) on the Oracle site for both WebCenter and Portal:

Oracle WebCenter Suite Release 11 SOD: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/webcenter/pdf/owcs_r11_sod.pdf

Oracle Portal Release 11 SOD: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/ias/portal/pdf/oracle_portal_sod_r11.pdf