Portlets - AI, ML, VR & more

We are starting a new project on JSR 286 and wondering what should be the best IDE for JSR 286 portlet development. The project is on IBM, so IBM RAD (Rapid Application Developer) was the first choice. Though as of now the latest production release 7.0 doesn't support JSR 286 and 7.5 version which supports JSR 286 is just in beta stage. IBM has not communicated any clear date for GA. I think it leaves us to "Portal Pack 2.0 for NetBeans 6.1", a plugin for NetBeans. I have not tested it yet, but it says the support of JSR 286. I am not sure whether it has embedded JSR 286 container for testing portlet within IDE or not? I'll check and update on this. By the way, have you started developing JSR 286 portlets? If yes, which IDE do you use?

Yesterday, IBM announced the availability of WebSphere version 6.1. With this release, the focus was on Web 2.0 and support for JSR 286/ WSRP 2.0. Please check out what is new in IBM WebSphere Portal 6.1 - http://my.advisor.com/doc/19519

Previously I used to publish the results of the poll "Which is the best open source portal server" regularly on this blog. I stopped doing that because it became more or less repeatative. Today while visiting the poll section of portlets forum , I found that there are certain other polls going and since it is a long time, I thought to put it on this blog. It may still help you in decision making. Best Open Source Portal Server Which commercial portal meets most of your portal requirements? It looks like Liferay is the portal of choice for majority when it comes to open source portals and 'IBM WebSphere portal' in case of commercial portals. If you have not voted you can also think of voting Portal Poll here .

JSR 286 (Portlet 2.0) final release is available to download from the JCP website. Here is the direct link - http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/final/jsr286/index.html Happy Portlettting.

Two of the leading open source portals have taken altogether two different routes for future development. For Liferay Portal, it is more of community building and social networking features that is taking center space, whereas for eXo portal, it is more about WebOS. This is very interesting because the roadmap of both of these portal platforms is way different from commercial portals. It also shows the courage and innovation of the open source products which is missing in commercial products. I believe in terms of innovation, open source portals are now ahead of their commercial counterparts. I don't know whether it is due to the open source philosophy or due to the tough competition they are facing from commercial portals, but it is very good for the portal space. I wish them all the best. Keep innovating.

Writing Java applications in Visual Studio Dot Net seems an interesting idea. MainSoft promises that only. I have not given it a try, but will be very interesting to check it out. Here is the latest news that talks about this product - Visual Studio and Java?

You would be happy to know that the JSR 286 is approved and the final version should be available soon. By the time, you can have a look at final draft here . I am sure JSR 286 will prove a big leap forward in success of Java Portals. I congratulate spec lead Stefan Hepper and all expert group members for the efforts and hard work.

Today I saw the announcement of "Google Sites" in my mailbox. I use Google Apps services for few of my domains. Just if you are not aware of what Google Apps is, Google Apps is a collaboration platform that can be subscribed by the companies instead any installation locally. In other words, it is kind of hosted portal for an enterprise. It provides quite a few important collaboration features like Email, Calendar, Task, Docs etc. Now the latest addition to this set is Google Sites. Google Sites is a tool for quickly creating new websites and sharing information. Here is how Google defines it - "Google Sites is the easiest way to make information accessible to people who need quick, up-to-date access. People can work together on a Site to add file attachments, information from other Google applications (like Google Docs, Google Calendar, YouTube and Picasa), and new free-form content. Creating a site together is as easy as editing a document, and you always control who ha...