Previous chapters have discussed how you can use Internet Explorer 3.0 to navigate the Internet, as well as how you can build your own Internet Web site with tools like Internet Assistant, FrontPage, CGI scripts, and Java. At this point, you're ready
to
put your Web server online and begin distributing your information to anyone around the world with an Internet connection.
However, there is another form of Web connection that's growing in popularity nearly as fast as its "big brother," and it might prove just as important as an Internet-based Web site to any office or business with a local area network. This
new
form of Web network, called an intranet, provides a method of distributing many types of information between different PCs on the same internal network using HTML technology.
In a single sentence, intranets are like the Internet's Web on a much smaller scale, internal to a single company. How popular are they? Worldwide sales of intranet servers are forecast to grow from approximately 43,000 in 1995 to almost 2 million by
1999.
This chapter further defines the important differences between an Internet Web site and an intranet Web site, including some of the pitfalls you might encounter while configuring your company's LAN for an intranet. I compare an Intranet with
traditional
office-wide groupware technology, as well as discuss design issues specific to an intranet Web site. You'll learn more about the many applications you can develop for use by other departments within your company and get a glimpse at the future of the
intranet, including what applications might lie ahead.
Of course, Internet and intranet technologies are very similar in many ways, using the same base network protocol (TCP/IP) and the same language (HTML). For all practical purposes, a solid idea of what an intranet actually is has only coalesced within
the last year or so.
Many companies still believe that they can use their existing Internet platform as the foundation for some of the applications covered in this chapter. The idea is to save money, of course, and reduce the hardware, software, and manpower required to
run
a Web site. The common question these days is, "Why do we need another Web computer just for company information?"
In this section, you learn why intranets are so popular, and why they warrant an investment in time, manpower, and money—even if your company already has an Internet site and a presence on the Web. You'll also learn the details of what you'll need
to add an intranet to a company network that doesn't currently have an Internet connection.
Unlike a Web site that enables connections through the Internet, an intranet site is designed with the internal needs of your company in mind, and this affects not only the appearance of your site but the applications you'll add to it as well. The
tools
you use remain the same—HTML to build pages, for example—but the information you want to present to your fellow employees is usually quite different from the data you provide to the public on your Internet site. As a general rule, an intranet is
best suited to a small or medium-sized company with a need to search, display, and update company data. Figure 34.1 shows a typical intranet main menu with a set of common applications.
Some of the fundamental differences between an intranet and an Internet site are
Now that you're more familiar with the differences between an Internet site and an intranet site, you're ready to find out what you'll need to operate an intranet—whether you currently have an Internet Web site or not.
The traffic you expect to visit your site will dictate the speed and capacity of your Internet server machine, and the same is true of your intranet platform: make certain you select a computer fast enough and with enough hard drive space.
Remember, after your intranet is operational and online, bringing it down to upgrade the hardware could be more than just a minor inconvenience. Make sure your intranet server is not only sufficient for the current size of your company, but ensure it
can accommodate future growth as well.
Also, it's strongly recommended that you do not try to run both an Internet and an intranet site on the same PC. Performance will suffer, of course, but that's not as important as the issue of security. Sharing resources on the same machine between two
servers greatly increases the chance that a document or company data meant for internal use only is inadvertently displayed for the public to view. Additionally, if a machine running multiple servers should happen to go down due to hardware failure or a
lockup, you'd lose both of your Web sites. For these reasons, virtually every company with multiple Web servers dedicates a separate PC to each server.
With this in mind, then, here are the minimum requirements for an intranet server:
TIP
If your company workstations are using Windows 3.11 or Windows 95, it's easy to configure the built-in TCP/IP stack for your intranet.
That covers the basic requirements for your intranet site. Later in this chapter, you'll learn about additional commercial intranet web applications that are just now appearing on the market and can greatly enhance your site. However, you'll be
surprised by the applications you can create with these basic requirements.
Now it's time to start the actual planning of your intranet by introducing two important steps: identifying your audience and determining the content they require.
At first glance, identifying the audience for a company intranet seems like a very easy task. After all, everyone in your organization will benefit from your intranet, so everyone will want to connect to it, right?
Similarly, selecting what data and what applications need to be provided by your intranet shouldn't be a problem; simply place all the company information you can get on the server, stick in a simple search engine, and you're ready to go.
Of course, both of these suppositions couldn't be farther from the truth, and few Web masters would ever take such a course; however, these common misconceptions underline the importance of planning. You'll save yourself a tremendous amount of work
later (adding, deleting, and modifying content and restricting and granting access) by spending a small period of time planning realistically based upon your company's needs.
First, consider who will use your intranet site within your company. Your goal is a simple one: concentrate on providing access to the largest number of individuals who will consistently use the resources you'll feature on your site.
For some companies, this could indeed be everyone—for example, a smaller consulting firm of ten to twenty people, or a real estate firm with less than forty employees. Such companies are small enough not to overload your intranet server, and most
individuals within the firm have similar needs for the same information. The smaller the organization, the less likely there will be a need for separate levels of security when it comes to company data. There are likely to be fewer departments and less
specialization among employees.
Compare the possibilities for different audiences at company with a larger firm of 200 people or more. Employees are now grouped into distinct departments with different requirements for what they'd like to see online (and usually with different ideas
of how to present and retrieve that data). Some company data will undoubtedly need a higher level of security. You must also consider the performance of your server PC—how well will it handle the traffic from a larger user base? Rather than provide
everyone with access, it makes more sense to target those who will actually use your intranet.
Your company might be on either end of this spectrum, or it might fall somewhere between, but the process for determining your audience will still involve the same three steps:
After you've used these criteria to narrow your audience to those who will benefit the most from your intranet, you can determine whether all of those workers have access to a workstation and which of them will require training to use a Web browser.
Identifying your intranet audience is also a requirement for planning the security measures you're likely to need; these are covered later, after you've decided on the content you'll offer on your site.
The next phase of planning your intranet site centers on the data you'll provide to your users. You'll also make a first guess at the applications you'll offer to enable search and manipulation of that data.
As mentioned earlier, it's likely that you already have a basic idea of what you'll offer on your site, and it might appear that this is a step you can skip; perhaps content has already been determined by management, or you've met with key individuals
in your company and discussed what their departments would like to see on a company intranet. This makes a good starting point, but unfortunately, it's very easy to promise too much during the planning stages.
Before you set up your server and begin gathering information, coding applications, or buying additional software, take a break and examine what you can actually deliver online (both now and in the future).
To plan the content of your site, keep these guidelines in mind:
After you've determined the information you'll furnish on your new intranet site, it's a good idea to request final approval of the content from those in charge. This extra step can save many headaches in the future, as you can be certain that what
you're offering is indeed what was desired.
As emphasized earlier, intranet security is important if your company already has an Internet connection, or if your intranet will carry secure data that should not be distributed to some of its users. Today's Web server software might offer one or
both
of the following methods of security:
Of course, if your intranet will serve a single office with a network that's already using a standard login procedure—for example, a small business with ten employees or fewer that's currently using the networking support built into Windows
95—you already have a basic security system in place. If there are any entry points into your LAN from the outside world, however, it's highly recommended that you implement at least one of the two security methods mentioned here on your intranet
server.
In this section, you learned the basics behind building an intranet site: the hardware and software requirements, how to plan for your audience, what information you should provide, and how you can safeguard your intranet from outside intrusion. The
next section compares intranets with commercial multiuser software packages (commonly called groupware). You'll learn about many of the more popular applications currently being offered on intranets worldwide and how you can implement them on your
site.
One of the advantages that makes an intranet attractive is the low cost of the "raw material": HTML is relatively easy to learn and it's now supported within Windows 95 with Internet Explorer. Additionally, many of the best tools used to
create Web pages are either free or relatively inexpensive. In fact, some of the simplest applications for your intranet presented in this section can be created in less than an hour.
First, this section compares intranet technology to traditional company-wide software packages that provide many of the same functions. You'll learn the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, and why the intranet is fast becoming an attractive
alternative.
The rest of this section is devoted to some of the most popular applications you can add to your intranet. Some applications are simple enough that you can easily write them yourself, while the more powerful features are available with commercial
programs.
Although the intranet as an office tool is a relatively recent development, other software packages designed to enable employees to access company information have been popular for years now. Program suites like these are called groupware; they're
usually built around a proprietary database format and a multiuser interface, allowing coworkers to access and modify the same data at the same time. Lotus Notes is a good example of a popular groupware package, offering many of the same applications
discussed later in this chapter. Figure 34.2 illustrates a representative Lotus Notes menu. As a rule, however, a groupware package is more powerful and offers more features than even the most sophisticated intranet.
You might be asking, "Why should I bother building an intranet, then? Why not buy groupware instead?" After seeing a comparison of the two approaches to company-wide communications, you'll learn why many firms are turning away from groupware
in favor of an intranet.
In its simplest form, even a software package containing a network-aware word processor and spreadsheet can call itself groupware, but the name is more properly applied to comprehensive programs providing messaging, file transfer and retrieval,
scheduling, database access, and document management to everyone within a company.
Typically, groupware is superior to an intranet system in these ways:
So why are intranets so popular today? Here are some of the clear advantages of an intranet over a groupware suite:
As you can see, an intranet is not the perfect solution for every company; much depends upon the amount you're willing to spend, the number of employees in your company, and the functions you want the system to perform. If you need a turnkey system
that
will be up and running in a short time, an intranet is probably not as attractive as a groupware suite. However, if you're looking for an inexpensive company-wide system and you'd like to design it yourself, an intranet site is a natural solution.
The next section explores some of what's possible today with an intranet, including applications you can create yourself.
Often, an intranet is designed solely for the display of information throughout a company. There's certainly nothing wrong with such a site; after all, HTML was designed expressly for the display and linking of text information. Your company might
already have an online employee listing or a resource scheduling system in place, so why duplicate it on your intranet?
However, if you're looking to expand the functionality of your intranet beyond the basics, you'll want to know about these popular applications that you can add to your site.
As mentioned earlier, a good starting point for any intranet site is a menu for the display of company documents. In fact, this is probably the most common function available on either an Internet or an intranet site; only the contents of the documents
differ. Figure 34.3 shows an example of a document display application.
Figure 34.3. It doesn't get any simpler than this: an intranet document display page.
Note that document display and document retrieval are two different things in the intranet world:
Of course, converting large amounts of data to HTML format can be a time-consuming task—and reading a massive online document would probably prove to be just as bad. Therefore, document display on an intranet site is best reserved for documents of
10 pages or less that do not require constant updating, such as product feature lists, press releases, minutes, and white papers. If your company has a computer help desk, you can also create an excellent online troubleshooting guide for your support
staff
that can save countless calls.
If you're willing to take the time to create hypertext links within a document, you can make it easy for the reader to jump from inside the display of one document to another. However, sometimes this is actually unnecessary, since static reference
documents are usually self-contained and rarely require moving to another document. Also, in designing display pages and converting text for a company intranet, keep in mind that documents intended to be read on paper might not work as well online. Most
computer users aren't as comfortable reading documents of several pages on a computer screen as they are if the information was printed on paper, so take the time to edit and shorten unnecessary sections of the text wherever possible.
The second most common function for intranet sites is a menu enabling employees to receive binary files like programs and word processing documents in their original format, usually with an option to search entries for a particular filename or keyword.
Before the advent of intranet technology, many companies used electronic bulletin boards for this same purpose.
For example, a retrieval menu might subdivide company product information by operating system; by selecting the correct link for DOS, Windows 95, or Mac, you jump to a menu listing product information in the correct format. Each entry in the list is an
FTP link to the document on the server, so by clicking on the filename your browser would automatically retrieve the document (and possibly load it into the associated program).
Figure 34.4 illustrates an Adobe Acrobat document retrieved from this type of menu; because the file carried the extension .pdf, Acrobat was launched and the retrieved file was loaded automatically. This is a great convenience if your company has
standardized on a specific word processor, graphics program, or spreadsheet.
Intranet retrieval menus are excellent for
Because no conversion to HTML is necessary, an intranet Web administrator can assign the task of updating the retrieval menu to another employee with basic knowledge of HTML. Once the administrator has granted the appropriate network rights on the
server, updating such a menu is as simple as writing an entry with a new link and adding the corresponding files to the server. The employee need not even have physical access to the server because menu files can be updated offline and uploaded to
overwrite the older versions.
Figure 34.5 illustrates another interesting example of document retrieval; this time, the files are images in two different sizes. The keyword search engine is an extra convenience, but it means a little additional work when adding images because the
person responsible for updating the server database must supply the file with more than just a filename. If the Browse display style is selected, each thumbnail is displayed along with the filename, while the List style simply displays the filenames as
entries in a list.
A data search and display menu is quite similar to a document display menu. However, instead of displaying several pages of text in HTML format, the data display menu displays all the entries in a database that match your search criteria. Popular
Internet search engines like Yahoo or Lycos work on this principle, returning entries with links to other Web pages that match the keywords or concepts you provide. Note, however, that no information on the server is updated by this type of application;
although the list can be searched, the display is static.
In fact, data search and display menus are the real workhorses of any intranet, providing the basis for many applications. Figure 34.6 shows a typical search and display page application: a company-wide telephone directory, complete with a
sophisticated
search engine. As you can see, each entry returned can also be a link to a display page listing other phone numbers at that site.
Other typical uses for this basic intranet application include
Within FrontPage, the Search Page template is a good example of an application using search and display.
When building search engines for your intranet pages, keep in mind that the user might not know the information for one or more fields. In the telephone directory example, for instance, users are not stuck simply because they don't know a person's
name;
they can search on location, group, or division within the company as well. Whenever possible, include enough search fields so that it's easy to display a range of data without depending upon the primary search key.
Has a department within your company ever had to gather a specific piece of information from every employee? For example, perhaps the company picnic is approaching, and all 75 employees must select a main dish; or your marketing department has just
finalized a new magazine advertisement and would like a general opinion on how good it is from everyone within the company. You could ask questions like these through company e-mail, or you might pass around a sign-up sheet, but compiling the results will
be time-consuming (not to mention the headache of deleting countless e-mail replies).
An intranet site makes it easy for company management to stay in touch; employees can submit ideas, requests, and complaints through an intranet page, or answer a company-wide survey using a simple form that can be filled out online. Paperwork is kept
to a minimum, and replies are likely to be far more timely.
Figure 34.7 shows one possible application currently in use within a medium-sized company: a product requisition page, where workers can request additional hardware or software online. Records submitted from this page are routed directly to purchasing,
instead of the old paper method where the requests would've been routed through several individuals before finally arriving at their destination.
There are already commercial products available for feedback-style intranet applications that follow a regular process (such as submitting problem requests for software or the requisition page, as mentioned earlier). Workflow Metro from Action
Technologies and Webflow from Ultimus both include prebuilt applications and enable you to design new ones quickly and easily.
In most cases, a feedback or survey page will display the form you've designed, accept the input from the user, and save the information on the server, perhaps displaying a simple page indicating that the submit step was successful. It is possible,
however, for the server to run a CGI script to generate a tracking number, or perhaps compile the results of a survey; these values can be displayed as part of the success page, so the user receives a form of output as well.
TIP
When designing a form for one of these applications, use radio button groups and drop-down list controls whenever possible. Multiple choice fields are faster to complete and easier on the user than filling out a text field, and they ensure that the field will return a valid choice to the server. With a multiple choice field, you won't encounter a numeric value for a Yes/No question. Figure 34.8 illustrates an opinion poll form with multiple choice fields and radio button groups.
Most companies maintain some sort of database, either on a single machine (where only a single person can add, delete, or update records) or throughout the network. The more expensive network database servers can handle multiple instructions (or
queries) for the same record; SQL servers like these include high-level packages from Oracle, Seabees, and Microsoft.
On the surface, connecting your intranet to a SQL query database seems impossible. Typically, applications for these database servers are written in languages like Visual BASIC or C. How can your intranet server offer access to these powerful database
servers using only HTML?
With the recent growth in popularity of company intranets, there's a good possibility that you might be able to purchase a Web front-end solution from the manufacturer of your database server. Many vendors have added proprietary products written
especially for their database systems that will process queries from a CGI script running on your server machine. This enables you to display a simple HTML form to accept a query request over your intranet, and then display the results when the database
returns the results to your server. Proprietary products using this technology include Oracle's WebServer and Sybase's web.sql.
Records from smaller network database servers using Xbase technology can also be retrieved over an intranet in the same fashion; depending on the programming APIs supported by the database, it might be possible to view records and update them using
only
a combination of a CGI script and a Java applet.
Even if your database vendor doesn't currently offer an HTML processor, you might still be able to use a third-party program. For example, products like NETAway's SQL-Surfer provide generic SQL access with full HTML and CGI compliance, including an SQL
extension of HTML called SQL@Way. Allaire's Cold Fusion package enables you to write your own processor for generic SQL queries, and Object Manager from Tempest Products can orchestrate multiple applications written in different languages to handle
database access.
Most of these programs require some knowledge of CGI, Java, or PERL, which most Web administrators are familiar with; however, if you're looking for a Web database solution that requires no programming at all, check out R:Web from Micorim. With R:Web,
you simply design the Web database form on-screen, and the program delivers the scripts necessary to link any ODBC-compliant database to your form. Look for more easy-to-use WYSIWYG programs like these as intranets grow in popularity, increasing
competition among software developers as a result.
Surprisingly enough, scheduling applications are not a common feature of intranet sites. After all, the paper method of tracking things is probably working fine for your company right now. Many Web administrators are not aware that HTML is powerful
enough, while others simply don't feel that the function fits into the realm of an intranet site.
Nothing could be farther from the truth! As long as your intranet site is available to everyone in the company, you can throw away those paper logbooks and sign-up sheets. An intranet application can easily schedule company resources such as
These online schedules are available immediately to everyone within the company. Plus, your form can even record mileage driven or problems encountered with company equipment if necessary.
Figure 34.9 shows a meeting room resource scheduler currently in use on the intranet of a medium-sized company. The scheduler provides a graphical display that makes it easy to tell which hours a particular conference room will be occupied. To reserve
a
room for the current month or next month, you would click on that day within either of the two small calendars on either side of the page title. This HTML display front-end works in concert with two separate CGI scripts that do the actual processing (one
to return the occupied slots and one to process new reservations).
Figure 34.9. An intranet-based resource scheduler application for reserving company meeting rooms.
If you're planning an intranet or if you've just finished building your site, a resource scheduler makes a great first application to add—there's nothing like cutting paperwork and improving efficiency to justify your new intranet site.
One of the primary uses for the company intranet today is the discussion forum. If you've ever read an Internet newsgroup or used a public message base on a bulletin board system, you would find many similarities; a discussion forum is essentially an
open, public message base where everyone can reply to any message.
Companies use intranet discussion forums in a myriad of ways. Of course, they're fine for informal general conversations by employees throughout the company. However, they can play an important role in the development of a project or product as well,
acting as an ongoing open meeting where everyone can voice an opinion. Often, forums are used as open "suggestion boxes" by company management, or as continuing think-tank conversations on future directions the company might take.
As in a BBS message base, forum messages are arranged into threads—a thread is composed of the original message that started a topic and all of the replies following in order. Threading makes it much easier to read an entire discussion on one
topic
from beginning to end, keeping the flow of the conversation intact.
Unlike its Internet cousin, however, an intranet discussion forum might also offer the following additional features:
If your company already has some form of electronic mail, you're probably familiar with attachments; most discussion forum products also enable the author to attach text files or binary files to the message, so that readers can download associated
files
while reading the message.
Microsoft's FrontPage provides support for a good entry-level discussion group. Users can create their own topics whenever they wish or reply to individual messages. Replies appear threaded under the original topic, sorted further by date. The table of
contents for a typical discussion built within FrontPage appears in Figure 34.10, while the message window itself appears in Figure 34.11.
Other third-party software adds even more functionality to the basic discussion forum feature set. For example, Digital's Workgroup Web Forum can sort messages by author and by date as well as by thread, making it easier to track down a particular
message. Did you make a mistake in typing your message? Workgroup Web Forum also enables the author to change the text of a forum message after it has been posted, so you can correct errors later. The forum software net.Thread, from net.Genesis supports
moderated forums, where messages must first be approved by the individual designated as the moderator. The moderator can also edit the text of the message before adding it to the forum.
Throughout this chapter, you've been introduced to applications that are commonly used today on corporate intranet sites around the world, and you've learned why the intranet is fast becoming a viable alternative to traditional groupware.
However, like that of its Internet cousin, intranet technology is constantly advancing on a daily basis. As the HTML language standard is enhanced and new helper applications appear, your intranet site can reap the benefits with powerful new features;
in fact, upgrading the functionality of your intranet will often be as simple as distributing a new helper application throughout your company.
This final section introduces tomorrow's intranet technology: features that are only being used experimentally, or those that still need considerable work before they're widely used.
Full-motion video is much more familiar to today's computer user than it was only two or three years ago; the video support within Windows (especially Windows 95) and the video featured in most of today's multimedia CD-ROM games and educational
software
has irrevocably changed the way that most of us look at computer technology.
During those same years, a parallel revolution was occurring on the Internet, as more and more institutions and organizations began experimenting with sound and video across the global network. At first, these multimedia applications were simple
diversions, such as mounting a camera on a street corner and offering a video snapshot updated every few seconds, or adding sound clips to a Web page. More recently, these applications have matured into peer-to-peer live video and full-duplex voice
communications over the Internet.
The intranet applications for live video are obvious: conferencing throughout your company, company-wide broadcasting, video training and technical support, individual discussions, and video whiteboarding. With the proper equipment, you can actually
add
some of this state-of-the-art video technology to your intranet site for your company's use. A good example of current video display technology suitable for use as a helper application is the program Enhanced CU-SeeMe, from White Pine. This popular
program
requires a minimum of a 486-class PC with 256 color support and a TCP/IP bandwidth of at least a 28.8Kbps SLIP/PPP modem connection (or a hardwired connection to the office TCP/IP network). Each workstation will also need a sound card, speakers, and a
video camera like the popular Connectix QuickCam. Figure 34.12 shows CU-SeeMe in action.
Need more than person-to-person communications? White Pine also sells Reflector, which can concurrently distribute the video and audio from a CU-SeeMe broadcast to many workstations. Imagine the impact of a network-wide broadcast, in color, with your
intranet as the foundation.
However, live video over TCP/IP still has its problems. For example, the quality of a live video feed is directly linked to the lowest bandwidth available throughout the network. ISDN and dial-up connections to your intranet simply cannot handle the
transmission of video data as well as a dedicated T1, and most office LANs are far slower. Additionally, the standard workstation provided by most companies would not be fast enough for live video to perform well.
Another popular multimedia feature you can add to your intranet is two-way voice communications. Unlike the traditional Internet IRC chat or the chat areas on larger bulletin boards—where several people can type lines of text to one another in
real
time—voice products make possible a conversation over a TCP/IP connection, just as if you had picked up a telephone and called another person.
You might be asking, "Why would my intranet site need to support voice communications? After all, anyone within the company can simply call another over the office phone system." Of course, that's true for local calls, but what about your
foreign offices? Perhaps your company sends salespeople across the country, and they're constantly calling in to the office using a phone card. Any voice call that would normally be made over an expensive long distance phone connection can usually be made
over a wired network or SLIP/PPP connection, saving your company a tremendous amount on its phone bill. And, depending upon the speed of the connection and the sound cards used by the PCs on either end, you might find that the sound quality of an
intranet-based "telephone" call is almost as good as an actual long-distance call.
The requirements for a voice connection are similar to the requirements for a video link: a 486-class PC, a 14.4Kbps SLIP/PPP connection (or a hardwired connection to the office TCP/IP network), a 16-bit full-duplex sound card (half-duplex requires one
person to wait while the other talks, like a CB radio), a microphone, and speakers.
TIP
If your company intranet network isn't fast enough to support live video, it probably is still fast enough to provide quality voice communications.
Figure 34.13 shows Quarterdeck's WebTalk, one of the better Internet/intranet voice products available. Although the main screen doesn't look much like a telephone, it does give you some idea of the possibilities for global communications with its
world
map. To make a call, you must know the IP address of the person you're calling; WebTalk can either notify you of an incoming call (giving you the chance to refuse a call beforehand) or automatically pick up the "receiver" immediately.
Figure 34.13. Setting up WebTalk to make a voice connection over an office intranet.
Other Internet voice products include NetSpeak's WebPhone, Internet Phone from VocalTec, and DigiPhone from Third Planet. Some of these competitors also include Web "answering machines," while higher-end software enables Web-based voice
conference calls. Like video technology, the use of voice communication over the Web is just beginning to flourish, and you're likely to see many new and innovative uses for it appear in the next few years.
Another brand-new technology that hasn't quite "arrived" yet for intranets is the virtual world, or VRML. VRML worlds currently range from a simple set of rooms depicted in cyberspace (you can walk between rooms) to a full-fledged,
three-dimensional outdoor discussion group with near real-time speech, where individuals are represented by images called avatars that they design themselves. In some VRML worlds, you can even design your own building where others can enter and
talk
with you. Figure 34.14 illustrates a VRML world with avatars.
Unlike video technology, VRML worlds might not translate as well to the needs of a company intranet; they're probably better suited to the company Internet site, which can entertain the public as well as inform them. It's safe to assume that most
companies would rather display live video for a conference than a meeting of 3-D animals in a setting like Stonehenge.
However, virtual reality does help illustrate just how exotic future intranet applications might become, as long as network bandwidth allows. Would workers at your international division find it easier to navigate through the corridors of a virtual
home
office than dig through a six-month-old copy of your corporate directory? Only time will tell as the technology driving the Web world advances.
When a young technology like the Internet matures, one of the first demands from users is always convenience—and the same is true of the intranet. For example, consider a company employee searching through your intranet site for a specific day of
meeting notes, a particular press release on a product that's a few years old, or perhaps even performing a general search on a common topic. Even though you've made your search engine as easy as possible to use, wouldn't most people rather automate the
search task and have it performed while they refilled their coffee?
Convenience is the driving force behind a growing number of automated Gopher or bot technologies available for use on the Web. In its most basic form, you program an Internet/intranet bot with a search pattern (which can be simple or complex) and send
it out to surf the Web for any and all information that might match that search pattern. Most bots also arrange the data within a synopsis, enabling you to quickly summarize the search; you can always send another bot that's more specific to garner
additional information on anything interesting. Another interesting side of most automated bots: they can also continue to work offline, even after you've turned off your computer.
Quarterdeck's WebCompass is an excellent example of an Internet-based bot that accesses large search engines like YAHOO, Lycos, and WebCrawler. Figure 34.15 illustrates the criteria for a WebCompass search for the topic "Batman," while Figure
34.16 shows the results returned by the program.
Figure 34.16. The results of our WebCompass search on "Batman."
How does this technology affect your intranet site? Of course, the larger the site, the more convenient it will be for your users if they can create an automated bot. However, even smaller intranet sites can profit from the thorough searching these
automated programs can perform; for instance, the head of your financial department might program a bot that returns the following information from your intranet every business day when he turns his computer on:
One company whose automation product is perfectly suited to the intranet world is General Magic, makers of the Telescript communications language. Employees can use automated Telescript programs called agents to perform complex searches
throughout the Net, sort and arrange the data, and summarize it for quick use. Agents also continue searching and compiling data offline, so the user's PC can be turned off and the agent will continue the search. The company also offers Active Web Server,
which adds Telescript capability to any intranet or Internet Web server.
In this chapter, you've been introduced to the idea of a self-contained, company-wide network based upon Internet technology called an intranet and seen a comparison between a company intranet and the global Internet network as well as traditional
groupware software packages like Lotus Notes. You've learned how to plan your intranet, and what applications are most popular on existing intranets. Finally, you took a look at the future of company intranets, including technologies like video, voice,
and
automation that are currently cutting edge in the Internet world.
