Viador unveils new portal features

Viador Inc., which already develops portals for the departments of Defense, Education and others, today announced a number of improvements that include adding wireless applications and enhanced document management support.

The Viador E-Portal Express is an out-of-the-box solution that enables agencies to create, publish and deploy self-service portal pages to employees, citizens and business partners, said Phyllis Dunn, vice president for business development. That will improve access to relevant data and information, she said.

The new tool features an updated interface that allows users to personalize their portal pages by selecting and arranging content without specialized training or knowledge.

The content on these pages and other time-sensitive information are immediately available and accessible through Viador's wireless portal and Wireless Application Protocol-enabled cell phones and wireless palm devices, Dunn said.

Other improvements include:

Distributed architecture that allows the portal repository, Web server and portal server to be placed on separate servers for greater scalability over multiple processor machines. Support for leading document management repositories, including products from Documentum Inc., OpenText Corp. and FileNet Corp. Japanese language support, with French, Chinese and Korean to follow. The company has added new federal customers in the last few months, including the State Department and the Army chief information officer's office.

At State, Viador just began putting together a portal for all the counselors from the various embassies in the Washington, D.C., area, but that will be expanded for worldwide access and should be ready in "six to nine months," Dunn said.

The Army CIO project is for internal use only, but will provide a way for users servicewide to share different analytical information across commands.