Intranet: For What Services?

The introduction of the Intranet within the company allows both to install new applications quickly and increase the capabilities of existing applications by making them communicate. The new possibilities offered by the intranet within the company are many. Improving communication, the sharing of geographically dispersed resources to accomplish a task, the possibility of combining both a local presence by taking advantage of access to global expertise of the company, the creation of virtual teams without increasing overheads, the ability to provide service 24 hours a day 24 a new beginning each time in the world.

The first services to implement an Intranet are naturally those who have made the success of the public Internet and the first email. A recent survey by Gartner Group survey of 500 companies provided the top 5 applications Intranet:

1. Email
2. Access to public Internet
3. Access to corporate data
4. The distribution and publication of information
5. Records management.

The installation of an e-mail or connecting the local mail with the rest of the world via the Internet is the operation priority. The savings are immediate. An electronic message is from three to ten times cheaper than a fax in the distance. Its asynchronous nature, email adapts to jetlag. Attachments of all types reduce photocopying and allow modification and reuse of materials. One constraint: it must be used personally.

The establishment of an intranet with email is inseparable from the constitution and the provision of all a business directory that maintains information about employees, services or applications available and the controls of access. Such directory services are available on the network. Users will find information such as phone numbers and email addresses. Administrators manage access to services, applications also have direct access to this information. These directories, when they existed, were closed and proprietary. A recent standard (LDAP) directory will allow them to communicate and to exchange electronic business cards.