Intranets and Extranets - Intranets

INTRANETS

Intranets combine all the features of the Internet, including e-mail, Web sites, interactivity, and cross-network uploading and downloading, but are specifically for use inside a particular organization, such as a business, research facility, or school. In other words, an intranet is a sort of bordered, limited-access Internet that allows for more comprehensive and efficient passageways to company information. They find their most prolific use in the business world, where they help to streamline company operations by providing access to corporate data—everything from meeting schedules to sales projections to product-development reports—to those inside the firm. Many companies even build portals on their intranets to provide a central point of access and navigation scheme for company information and news.

Typically, intranets grow out of the need to address specific problems within a firm or department that requires data to be readily available to a number of separate users. From these initial steps, the network grows to incorporate more company information and provide access to more and more members of the firm. Corporate applications and software also are geared toward integration with the internal network. The intranet really begins to pay off, however, when it graduates from a massive information storage device to a tool for knowledge creation.

By the 2000s, companies were looking to their intranets not just as a forum for data storage and transfer, but also as a mechanism for exponentially enhancing the creation of corporate intellectual capital. By providing the tools for mining through the mass of data stored in company files and extracting relevant information in a meaningful and useful fashion, intra-nets are a mechanism for the creation of company knowledge and a cutting-edge vehicle for competitive strategy.