IBM released WebSphere Portal 8 in May just before the IBM Exceptional Web Experience (xWebx) conference in Austin, TX. I’ve posted several blogs about this version and have installed it several times (see the related posts). But there are two add-ons which are not yet updated for WebSphere Portal 8 and for which we are looking forward to seeing in the near future.
Now these add-ons are not part of the product per se, but we and our clients are interested in using these soon in WebSphere Portal 8:
- Content Template Catalog – this has been a great add-on to previous versions of portal because they provide a nice starting point for developing content in IBM Web Content Manager. In the xWebx conference, many of the IBM presentations showed off the CTC nicely. We are hoping to see the Content Template Catalog updated soon for use in WebSphere Portal 8.
- Connections Portlets – one new feature in Portal 8 is community pages which better ties Portal and Connections together. IBM released new versions of the Connections portlets for Portal 7 just before the announcement of Portal 8. IBM is working on the next version of Connections and we are participating in the Beta program. However, we’re not sure if we have to wait for Connections 4 to get new Connections portlets for WebSphere Portal 8 or if there will be an update to the Connections 3 portlets in the near future.
I haven’t looked closely enough at other add-ons, such as the Mobile Theme or Quickr portlets to know if they have been updated for Portal 8 or not. I’m sure we’ll see all the add on products updated soon – watch here or IBM’s Solution Catalog for updates.
