It's (almost) here, I can hear it slowly walking up the drive ............

IBM WebSphere Portal V6.1 leverages Web 2.0 to provide exceptional user experiences

At a glance

WebSphere Portal V6.1 provides an exceptional user experience, facilitates reuse of Web assets and existing IT assets, and improves ease of deployment. It enables organizations to quickly implement new business designs that are engaging, flexible, and high performance.

Enhanced Web 2.0 capabilities enable desktop-like responsiveness and much more intuitive and participatory composite business applications that leverage both Web and corporate information sources.

New installation options, customization tools, site deployment wizard, and out-of-the-box jumpstart templates all contribute to less effort, less cost, and faster time to value.

Support for WebSphere Application Server V6.1 and enhancements for site layout and management, security configuration, portlet deployment and management — all lead to greater reliability, manageability, and performance.

IBM continues its leadership role in development and implementation of the most recent portal open standards, such as JSR286 and WSRP 2.0.

Roll on June 30th, that's what I say ...............

The full announcement is here, with the PDF version here.