Rapid Portal, called "RapPort," offers Microsoft's internal users predefined templates to quickly and inexpensively build intranet portals that take advantage of the search, document management, and collaboration features of SharePoint Portal Server. RapPort portals deploy quickly and are easy to maintain.
RapPort and SharePoint Portal Server bring significant benefits to Microsoft's internal groups:
Intranet portals often fail to map to day-to-day work. For example, information might be stored in multiple places without a consistent taxonomy. Tools may focus on individual work instead of sharing and collaboration. In addition, intranet portals rarely include tools to help with mostly manual day-to-day tasks. This is true even inside Microsoft.
To address those issues, in June 2000, the Knowledge Management Information Technology group (KMIT) inside Microsoft set out to look at knowledge management and collaboration in departments within Microsoft, and to create solutions that eased those problems.