The Evolution of the Intranet Part II By Tim Dorey
Last year I wrote the article “The Evolution of the Intranet”.  It was a simple overview of what an Intranet is and how the systems that compose an intranet have changed over the years.
A year later, and you wonder what has changed?  Well, a great deal has taken place.  In the past, Intranets were thought of as a project the IT department was working on.  Today, Intranets are becoming the most important aspect of a company’s technological strategy.  No technology decision is made without asking the question “Will it work with our Intranet”?
In the present day, companies are more educated on the latest systems; as a result, they know exactly what they are looking for and how they want it to work for their company.  Those days of confusion and uncertainty have vanished.   Now, when I speak to companies, they communicate explicit details concerning what it is they want and need to accomplish.
A subject that is still being argued in boardrooms across the world is the issue of Build vs. Buy.  The tendency of smaller companies, fewer than 100 employees, is to build their Intranet system by utilizing a less experienced IT staff.  On the other hand, larger companies have already been through the trials and tribulations of building in-house systems, and tend to buy instead. In many cases, smaller IT staffs have no other choice but to build in-house, as budget limitations leave them no other choice.
As more tools become available, building in-house Intranets have become easier; however, the standards and requirements of the companies that are in need of an Intranet have become more sophisticated thus making the design, build and deployment of an Intranet that much more difficult.
Larger companies have certain needs that cannot be met through in-house built Intranet systems. Certain services are required such as, a company that has a strong professional services arm to help deploy and customize certain areas of the Intranet software, or the requirement of a Software Development Kit that will allow their in-house staff to edit existing applications or create new ones if need be.
Another trend that has occurred is the tendency for larger companies to veer away from the word “Intranet”.  Now you will hear the terms “Collaborative Workspace”, “Company Portal”, “Knowledge Base”, “Information Management System” etc.  This means many aspects of technologies are merging together to create a valuable corporate asset instead of a few pieces of software running on a server.

The five-step process to implement Intranet to Manage your Strategic Information
Last month, we described why an Intranet is used by many organizations to share intelligence. This article outlines the steps necessary for building an Intranet to share your marketing and strategic information. Typically, five steps are needed to structure the system:
* Step 1: Define your needs
* Step 2: Choose your tool
* Step 3: Prepare the pilot
* Step 4: Rollout
* Step 5: Follow up
(...)

What is an Intranet?
Intranet Corner
An Intranet is any site based on Internet technology that is placed on private servers within an organization, a site designed not to allow outsiders in. Because the sites typically run on internal networks rather than the Internet, bandwidth isn't as much of a problem, so sound and video can be added without hurting performance.
Often, the sites offer hooks into corporate databases with forms and queries serving as a front-end for relational databases. The individual users access all this data through the standard Web browsers they use to access Web pages on the Internet.
Yes, you are right, the potential is endless. There are a large number of corporate information resources and transactions that are potential candidates for an Intranet:
* Policy and procedure manuals and quality manuals
* ISO 9000 work instructions
* Employee
* benefits programs
* Orientation materials
* Software user guides and hardware manuals
* Quick reference guides and
* online help, etc…
A recent Culpepper & Associates conference estimated that by the year 2000, annual shipments of Internet servers will approximate 450,000, while the shipments of Intranet servers will approximate 4,500,000! The installed base by the year 2000 of Web servers is estimated to be approximate 10.2 million sites, of which 9.2 million will be Intranet sites and 1 million will be Internet sites. We haven't seen anything yet. 

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Collage di contenuti
Merant , una softwarehouse focalizzata sulla problematica della gestione dei contenuti per Internet e intranet, ha varato la versione 4.0 di Collage, una piattaforma che integra capacita' di gestione e pubblicazione dei contenuti archiviati nei siti Web e una serie di strumenti per la manipolazione del codice Html. In altre parole una specie di content manager piu' editor. Questa edizione vede un supporto ancora piu' esteso dei tipici sistemi di back-office delle reti aziendali, come i database Oracle e Microsoft ed e' compatibile con sistemi operativi Mac e Linux (Red hat). Collage e' anche in grado di convertire automaticamente le informazioni nel formato Adobe Pdf. La differenza rispetto ad analoghe piattaforme di content management puro, come Documentum e Interwoven, starebbe proprio, secondo Merant, n ella possibilita' di int ervenire sul codice Html. Mentre i concorrenti si concentrano sulla catalogazione dei documenti archiviati in una rete, Collage si presterebbe meglio a un contesto di continua convergenza tra i documenti e le pagine Html.

Chiedi e ti sara' estratto
Con l'aumento della complessita' delle reti intranet, dei business portals e delle risorse custodite sui server aziendali ma anche su fonti esterni come i siti Web e i database specializzati commerciali, si sta scaldando un mercato di nicchia come quello delle tecnologie per la ricerca delle informazioni vitali per una impresa. Nascono cosi' search engine specializzati basati essenzialmente sulle tecnologie degli agenti software e di sofisticate capacita' linguistiche, che permettono di interrogare una molteplicita' di fonti alla ricerca di contenuti pertinenti o di ottenere concisi e significativi riassunti di decine e decine di pagine di testo. Uno dei prodotti piu' interessanti arriva da Xerox, la "document company", che grazie alle ricerche linguistiche dei suoi laboratori ha integrato in AskOnce potenti funzioni di estrazione testuale. AskOnce  puo' interrogare una molteplicita' di archivi di documenti non indicizzati, in una molteplicita' di lingue. Concorrenti di Xerox nell'arena della ricerca intelligente sono l'inglese Autonomy , che utilizza una tecnologia di estrazione delle informazioni non linguistica ma basata sul trattamento digitale. Verity , infine, ha rilevato le tecnologie di enterprise search da Inktomi (successivamente acquistata da Yahoo) e le ha integrate nella sua linea di prodotti Ultraseek.