When it was ready to construct an extranet for its clients, Ziba Design knew no ordinary portal would do. As the creative force behind the sleek look of the Sirius S50 handheld satellite radio and Intel's new super-thin Metro laptop computer, the Portland, Oregon, firm wanted its new extranet to be just like its innovative designs—stylish and functional.

It succeeded. Launched a year ago, Ziba's extranet now boasts 50 active client projects showcased inside what Ziba calls "virtual studios." Designed to encourage maximum collaboration with clients, each virtual studio conveys the company's distinctive design persona and is open 24/7. The virtual studios have become popular meeting spaces where client and agency swap ideas and design concepts, share CAD and JPEG files, and post news and announcements.

"Clients find it much easier to find the files they need," says Ziba IT Director Dieter Reuther of the new extranet that's used for such high profile accounts as Citigroup, Logitech, Rubbermaid, and Intel. "Before some files were in the e-mail box, and some in FTP. Now clients have one central place where they can collaborate with Ziba."

As service companies like Ziba look for a competitive edge and cross-corporate teams become increasingly project-driven, more people are finding portal technologies can help. Using a mix of Web content management systems and self-publishing platforms like blogs and wikis, service firms are discovering new and more productive ways to get their jobs done.

Portals are particularly valuable to service firms that rely on extended networks of employees, remote contractors, and customers. "People are collaborating in wider circles more often and with all kinds of people, not just coworkers, but also customers, consultants, and vendors," says Larry Chait, managing director of Chait & Associates, Inc., a knowledge management consulting firm in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Chait points to several factors that have influenced this change. For one thing, shorter product development cycles mean companies have to stay in closer touch as they innovate faster and more often than ever before. Because it's rarely possible for extended workgroups to meet in person, portal technology serves as the next best thing.

For another, technology provides collaborative opportunities that were previously not possible. For example, a decade ago videoconferencing was costly and ineffective. Today it's done from the desktop, is more interactive, and is easily recordable for playback later. The current generational shift has been a big factor as well, with younger workers now expecting more collaborative tools. "MySpace and YouTube have had a marked impact on the generation moving into the workforce," says Chait.

Multiple business challenges are laying the groundwork for an enthusiastic reception of new portal technologies. Because many corporate e-mail systems limit file size, new methods are needed for sharing multi-megabyte files that are increasingly common in multimedia. While file transfer protocol (FTP) transfers have been possible for years, many people today don't have access or knowledge of FTP tools. Meanwhile, organizations are increasingly prohibiting FTP use for security reasons.

Globalization, too, poses efficiency challenges that are addressed by portals. "What tends to hold projects up? It's typically the human aspects of collaboration," points out Elisa Graceffo, Microsoft group product manager for collaboration and portals. "If you think about the lag time that can occur with someone two hallways down, it's even more intense with someone in a different geography and time zone."

When it comes to traditional collaborative technologies like e-mail and telephone, more isn't necessarily merrier. "All of our customers realize that when the collaborative environment extends to partners or customers, the struggles they have internally—with real-time collaboration roadblocks or the sharing of documents—become even more complicated," says Evan Richman, Microsoft senior product manager.

By using a portal or extranet to collaborate with colleagues and clients, service firms can overcome these handicaps. Uploading and downloading large files, for example, is easily done through Web browsers with just a few mouse clicks. Using threaded discussions to keep a project on track is also more organized and efficient than multiple e-mail messages, where requests are easily lost or communications are taken out of context. And because an extranet is online, it's always available for members to use, regardless of time zone.

By embracing leading-edge technologies, the latest portal technologies free service companies to focus on their business. Using an RSS feed, for example, companies can push out relevant information to partners and customers. Meanwhile, more companies like Ziba are enhancing their intranet and extranet portals with corporate wikis. This software can turn once-onerous tasks like documenting a complex process into a quick and easy group publishing effort (see chart, "How Corporate Wikis Benefit Users").

Leading service companies like Ziba are increasingly turning to portals to gain a competitive edge. So it's not surprising that consultant Larry Chait of Chait & Associates applauds those firms willing to experiment with new technologies to advance their business goals. "They're taking the technology and using it for whatever they can get out of it," he says.