Good topic idea but ...

This book explains the concept of portals and how Microsoft enterprise servers handle and implement the features that goes into a portal. The book is written by 3 authors and unfortunately the different writing styles and depth of the subject show.

For example in Chapter 8 Personalization, there is only one page on personalization with Content Management Server. Most of the content in it concentrates on how to do caching in a personalized setting without explaining how to do personalization with CMS in the first place.

In Chapter 5 Portal Framework, it details line by line codes on how to write a portal site in VB.Net. While the code is good, it is too technical compared with the rest of the book. I rather see code snippets on how to build some common components in a portal site instead of a portal application. It is a bit difficult to extract out the code you need as everything is tied together in the architecture. BTW, there is no CD in the book and no hyperlink is mentioned on where to download the source code.

The book has an entire chapter on Content Management Server. It also covers Commerce Server and SharePoint Portal Server quite well and gives a brief overview on BizTalk and InfoPath. I rather see more technical emphasis on how to integrate the different servers than having screenshots of numerous dialogs explaining what each of the fields does.

Finally the book retails at $50 which is far too expensive. It should be around $35 instead.

Other Reviews

• Exellent Book
• it is all about Portals
• Finally a book that ties all these products together
• Broad in scope and audience
• Good topic idea but ...