Product release dates and/or capabilities referenced in these materials may change at any time at IBM’s sole discretion based on market opportunities or other factors and are not intended to be a commitment to future product or feature availability in any way.
FAQs: IBM Accelerators for WebSphere Portal
Updated January 2009
This document covers the common, most frequently asked questions, regarding the IBM accelerators for WebSphere Portal. It is recommended that it be reviewed in its entirety, or you may click on a section topic below to navigate to a specific section.
· Announcement Questions
· Accelerator-specific Questions
· IBM Content Accelerator 6.1.0.1
· IBM Collaboration Accelerator 6.1.0.1
· IBM Dashboard Accelerator
· IBM Self-Service Accelerator
· IBM Enterprise Suite Accelerator 6.1.0.1
· IBM Learning Accelerator
· IBM Business Process Accelerator 6.1
· Entitlement & Other Questions
Announcement Questions:
What are we announcing?
Starting in April 2007, we have announced the availability of seven “accelerator” offerings for WebSphere Portal Server – integrated packages that easily snap-on to the WebSphere Portal Server, helping to speed time-to-market and improve time-to-value, by providing capabilities specific to customer business challenges/needs. The new offerings announced to date include:
Accelerator / Original Announce DateIBM Dashboard Accelerator / April 2007
IBM Self-Service Accelerator / July 2007
IBM Content Accelerator / March 2008
IBM Collaboration Accelerator / March 2008
IBM Enterprise Suite Accelerator / March 2008
IBM Learning Accelerator / November 2007
IBM Business Process Accelerator / April 2008
What is an accelerator?
Accelerators are offerings that simplify the process of acquiring specific products, technologies and capabilities that map to specific business requirements served by WebSphere Portal Server-based business solutions. With these new offerings, we are building on our leadership in helping customers deliver highly scalable, role-based portals. In addition to selling Portal as a powerful platform for speeding composite application development, we are now going to market with solution-specific portal offerings that align with the business scenarios customers most commonly deploy.
New portal solution accelerators include:
o IBM Dashboard Accelerator which helps organizations reach performance data wherever it resides, delivering it as real-time key performance indicators via personalized, portal-based dashboards.
o IBM Self-Service Accelerator which helps increase user satisfaction and improve overall efficiency by providing users direct and simplified self-service access to personalized SAP Human Resources (HR) information and transactions.
o IBM Content Accelerator which provides a powerful online content creation and management environment for building robust, high-value Web sites that improve communication and productivity.
o IBM Collaboration Accelerator which enables team collaboration, instant messaging, and social networking to improve organizational knowledge sharing.
o IBM Enterprise Suite Accelerator which provides a flexible, portal IT platform, to support multiple business projects. It includes all the capabilities of the IBM Dashboard Accelerator, IBM Content Accelerator and IBM Collaboration Accelerator, as well as support for security-rich, customizable electronic forms and offline rich client support for even greater flexibility.
o IBM Learning Accelerator helps increase employee effectiveness and productivity by helping provide them with the right learning tools needed to build their skill set and meet new job requirements.
o IBM Business Process Accelerator helps customers accelerate the automation of people, data and system driven business processes.
Why is this announcement significant?
IBM has now delivered seven (7) accelerators identified as part of our new strategy (announced April 2007) for serving the portal market. This clearly demonstrates IBM’s ability to execute on its continuing vision of understanding evolving customer business needs and delivering technology to address them – as evidenced by our most-favorable placement in the just-released Horizontal Portal Magic Quadrant, 2007 (August 2007) report from Gartner.
Additionally, this further differentiates IBM from other portal vendors, by affording customers the confidence in a single portal foundation to support the evolving and varied needs of their organization. Customers may choose WebSphere Portal Server to address one or more challenges, whenever they desire, by simply “snapping-on” the appropriate accelerator, such as collaboration for instant interaction with people and teams, dashboards for real-time key performance indicators and self-service to empower people and improve efficiency.
Why did we announce “accelerators” for WebSphere Portal?
Quite simply, we did it to match customer buying behavior more closely. The majority of customers now buy Portal software for specific projects driven by a business need or opportunity (dashboards for better operational insight, for example). Some still initially buy Portal as infrastructure – that will probably never stop – but more often the need is now driven by the need to deliver a unique Web experience with specific capability (dashboards, Web content management, etc.) The great news is that even when buying for a specific business capability, with the Portal + Accelerator approach, they get the infrastructure too.
So, what’s the value of the Portal+Accelerator approach?
The obvious value is you can match EXACTLY what other capability the customer needs beyond the base Portal. Let’s say their first need is to empower more business users to control the Web content – and by doing so, decrease the burden on IT. Portal + Content Accelerator meets the mark perfectly, as you can sell the exact amount of Content Accelerator required for WCM requirements. Maybe after that they want to provide online forms…they can simply buy the Business Process Accelerator and add that to the existing Portal infrastructure, and so on.
But with Portal Enable & Extend my customer gets multiple capabilities too, right?
Right, but in predefined entitlements that may hit the mark as is. For example, Enable includes WCM on a basis of 1 value unit of WCM to every 6 value units of Portal (or for every 6 CPUs of Portal they are entitled to 1 CPU of WCM). So, if they need more WCM, you have to sell additional licenses anyway…why not simply sell Portal Server plus the exact amount of Content Accelerator they need from the beginning? This paves the path to upsell other Accelerators later and further promotes the “Portal as a foundation” message.
So when should I sell Portal+Accelerators versus Enable or Extend?
To help answer this question, ask one simple question first: Is the opportunity for a new customer? If the answer is yes, then the best approach is to sell WebSphere Portal + Accelerator(s). If it is no, you may still sell Enable or Extend, or you can discuss with them trading-up to Portal Server + Accelerator(s). Our goal with the Accelerator strategy is to focus on new customers. There is no reason to introduce anything other than Portal Server + Accelerator in the case of new customers.
What do “Accelerators” really accelerate?
They speed the time-to-value of a Portal investment. Since the Accelerators represent a broad spectrum of IBM technologies, software and solutions, customers can deploy the specific value-added capability (online chat, access to shared team spaces, business user Web content management, personalized electronic forms…and on and on), upon a single Portal infrastructure, when they need it. This helps customers get more value, faster, from their Portal investment. Unlike our competitors, we provide a path to valuable add-on capability (by leveraging other appropriate IBM offerings and solutions), on a common Portal platfom, providing proof to our customers that their initial investment in Portal can be continually added to, for more value.
As such, to some extent, they help accelerate sales, as well. You can spend less time trying to match a specific set of capability in the predefined Enable and Extend packages to a customer requirement by simply matching Portal Server + Accelerator(s) to their exact current needs.
Isn’t it cheaper to sell Enable & Extend versus Portal Server + Accelerators?
Not necessarily…you must be sure you are doing a true “apples to apples” comparison.
When a Portal customer purchases an Accelerator for their Portal environment, does it have to be a 1 for 1 PVU license match w/ their Portal environment?
No. Customers need only buy the number of Accelerator Value Units that match their application needs. For example, a customer may plan a large scale external deployment of Portal, while only running dashboards for internal users. You only need sell the number of Accelerator PVUs that match the customer’s Accelerator deployment size. While customers may license a sub-set of the Portal cores for Accelerator users, a customer cannot purchase more Accelerator value units than they have Entitlements of portal.
Accelerator-specific Questions
IBM CONTENT ACCELERATOR 6.1.0.1
What specific capabilities are provided by the IBM Content Accelerator 6.1.0.1?
The IBM Content Accelerator enables customers to build and manage robust, high value websites, intranets, extranets, and portals. Content can be easily created using intuitive, web-based tools and then delivered with a high level of personalization to site visitors. The IBM Content Accelerator improves productivity and allows organizations to keep web content current, accurate, and up-to-date without sacrificing brand identity or corporate web standards.
What specific technology/products are entitled with the IBM Content Accelerator 6.1.0.1?
IBM Content Accelerator 6.1.0.1 includes these products, entitled as follows:
PRODUCT / ENTITLEMENT / EXCLUSIONS / LIMITATIONSIBM Lotus Web Content Management 6.1 / Full
IBM Lotus Quickr 8.1 / o Limited to use of the Document Library place only
o ALL Quickr connectors entitled / Excluded from using any Quickr Connector or the Quickr Web user interface to access any enterprise content management repository, such as IBM Filenet Content Manager or IBM Content Manager Enterprise Edition
IBM OmniFind Enterprise Edition 8.5 / Regardless of how many PoEs are acquired of the IBM Content Accelerator, only:
o One (1) processor core for non-production use (development and testing) is allowed per enterprise
o One (1) processor core for production use is allowed per enterprise / Only the following data sources may be accessed from the entitled IBM OmniFind Enterprise Edition:
o WebSphere Portal pages
o WebSphere Portal's Document Manager
o Workplace Web Content Management
o Lotus Notes/Domino
o Lotus Quickr
o Lotus Domino Document Manager
o Windows and UNIX file systems
o Web (HTTP/HTTPS/NNTP)
How is the IBM Content Accelerator 6.1.0.1 packaged & priced?
IBM Content Accelerator 6.1.0.1 is packaged / priced as follows:
PRODUCT / PART # / LIST PRICE ($USD)* / INTENTIBM Content Accelerator / D61PSLL / $730 per PVU / Sell to existing WebSphere Portal Server customers as an add-on (alone or along with other accelerators)
IBM Content Accelerator WebSphere Portal Server / D61QCLL / $1,250 per PVU / Provides an equivalent for WebSphere Portal Enable (with the added benefit of full WCM entitlement); single offering of Portal & Content for new customers
*Prices quoted here are list prices for the United Sates only, as of January 2009. They are provided for your information only and are subject to change without notice. Always refer to Passport Advantage for the current pricing.
Are the Lotus Quickr connectors entitled with the IBM Content Accelerator?
Yes, with the V6.1.0.1 release of the IBM Content Accelerator, all of the Lotus Quickr connectors are entitled for use with the entitled Quickr Document Library place.
If I have an existing portal account that has a content management solution (ie WCM or competitive product), does the Content Accelerator provide any additional value?
Yes, in both cases the IBM Content Accelerator adds additional value. The IBM Content Accelerator offers an integrated package of Web Content Management, Document Management, Enterprise Search and WebSphere Portal that cannot be replicated with an external system without significant customization and cost. Lotus Web Content Management shares the same code base as WebSphere Portal enabling the two applications to share common services such as search, personalization, security, administration, and scalability. This allows LWCM managed content to participate in a WebSphere Portal site in such a way that results in a shorter time to value and makes it easier to build out a fully personalized Portal-based websites. IBM also has assets such as the Web Content Integrator that will allow customers to continue to use those external content systems while leveraging the out of the box integration that the IBM Content Accelerator provides.
In the case where the customer uses WebSphere Portal and Lotus Web Content Management today, the IBM Content Accelerator makes it easier for the customer to stay in compliance (ratio'd entitlements go away) and potentially decreases their annual maintenance. In the future, the Content Accelerator may have additional value adds that are not included in the base Portal or WCM package that will further show the value difference between the different packages.
How do reps or partners price the Authoring environment ? Is this considered part of the Run Time PVU, or does it need to be factored in addition?
Ideally, the authoring environment would reside on a different server than the run-time environment. So both servers would need to be part of the sizing / price estimate. In general, product components require the same number of PVUs as required by the overall product. Also, all of the components get the same number of PVUs as purchased for the overall product.
IBM COLLABORATION ACCELERATOR 6.1.0.1
What specific capabilities are provided by the IBM Collaboration Accelerator 6.1.0.1?
The IBM Collaboration Accelerator helps drive team collaboration and improve productivity. It provides team workspaces, document libraries, presence awareness, instant messaging, Web conferencing, people profiles and directories, as well as enterprise social networking features like blogs, wikis, shared bookmarking and communities.
What specific technology/products are entitled with the IBM Collaboration Accelerator 6.1.0.1?
IBM Collaboration Accelerator 6.1.0.1 includes these products, entitled as follows:
PRODUCT / ENTITLEMENT / EXCLUSIONS / LIMITATIONSIBM Lotus Sametime Standard 8.0 / Authorized to install and use Lotus Sametime solely and exclusively for the purpose of browser-based:
o Presence Awareness
o Instant Messaging
o Web Conferencing / Excludes functionality or any other service managed by the Lotus Sametime server including without limitation the:
o Lotus Sametime Connect client
o Lotus Sametime Mobile client
o Lotus Sametime Gateway
o Instant Messaging toolkits or API functions
(a full use license of Lotus Sametime is required for any of these)
IBM Lotus Quickr 8.1 / Authorized to install and use Lotus Quickr on a separate processor core
IBM Lotus Connections 2.0 / Authorized to install and use Lotus Connections on a separate processor core
How is the IBM Collaboration Accelerator 6.1.0.1 packaged & priced?