Successful web portals are increasingly those with not only good business information search facilities and content management, but inter-application, inter-company collaboration features, single sign-on and a single environment, according to users.

It's no longer just about simplifying online access to existing information and services. That remains important, but best portals are now also starting to deliver 'composite applications'. These can span multiple data sources and disparate and incompatible applications, providing everything from easy, unified information self-service, to reports, alerts and workflow, all with security administration.

And as adoption begins to grow beyond the big corporates that have been leading development, the market for portals - both internal and collaborative, involving supply chains, partners and customers - will continue to grow, apparently at around 20%.

These are among main findings from business portals company Plumtree in its fourth annual survey-this time conducted with 110 firms like Ford and Procter and Gamble - and six analysts.

Other useful findings include figures for portal initiative failure rates - around 20% to 30%. The report suggests that's largely due to projects that haven't integrated resources and new and existing processes.

The survey shows integrated applications, project collaboration and knowledge management ranked first, sec ond and third in terms of return on investment. And that makes sense in view of the expected balance for portal utilisation between business applications and interdepartmental, inter-application knowledge sharing.

Incidentally, it's also worth noting that the most popular portal applications are still those around employee self-service and integrated sales support. Departmental and work group resource centres and knowledge management are also up there. And so-called 'executive dashboards' are becoming more popular.

The research concedes, however, that portal development is not trivial. Since useful portals don't just integrate content and applications (itself a task), but also deliver new online services, you need systems engineers, content people and developers.