World Telecommunication Day 1999 |
Intranets protected internal, corporate networks based on the Internet Protocol (IP) - and connected to the global Internet, are presenting employees with new opportunities: to work from home or an Internet café, if they wish.
Jobs based on information sharing, rather than information processing, are best-suited to take advantage of what intranets have to offer. Today, about 90 percent of corporate intranets in Europe are used primarily as information sharing applications, according to a recent report from International Data Corporation (IDC), entitled ''IDC's European Intranet Survey.'' The types of shared corporate information include company phone books, internal and external news, memos, training seminars, time sheets and results from meetings.
''It is no surprise that information sharing on an intranet is so popular,'' says Mikael Arnbjerg, a market analyst at IDC European Internet Center. ''The research shows intranets are used in the majority of companies - in all countries surveyed, in all sizes of companies and in all industries.''
One of the reasons that information sharing is still the primary application for intranets rather than more complex corporate applications, such as accounting or order processing, has to do with the unavailability of Web-enabled versions of typical corporate software applications. This situation is only temporary, however, as companies have plans to roll out Web-enabled versions of their software.
The IDC survey also shows that access to an intranet via the Internet from outside the office is still only possible for around half of all intranets. Interestingly, home workers are using dial-up modems to access their company's intranet, rather than accessing it via the Internet. ''Less than a third of the respondents that allowed external access enabled their employees to access the intranet over the Internet,'' Mr. Arnbjerg says. ''Most companies presumably find it easier to provide dial-up access. Since a lot of the external intranet users will be local, they would have to dial their Internet service provider anyway, so it is apparently easier to have them dial in directly.''
Besides being easier, it is also more secure. Companies do not want their confidential sales data whizzing over the wide-open Internet without highly secure encryption software to protect it from prying eyes. In addition, there are some complex issues involving IP-addressing for remote workers. Industry experts say that it is only a matter of time before solutions for these problems become increasingly available from major telecommunications equipment and software suppliers.
Because of these issues, remote access to corporate applications using local area network (LAN) technology is still important for home workers and telecommuters. It is secure and based on mature technologies. The percentage of employees who access LANs from their homes or remote offices continues to grow, according to another recent survey report from IDC. The number of employees remotely accessing LANs grew from 27.6 percent in 1997 to 32 percent in '98. In '99, respondents to the survey predicted that 38.6 percent of employees would access LANs remotely.
Remote access to an intranet has much in common with remote LAN access. An intranet offers some advantages, however, such as the ability to equip home workers with relatively low-end PCs. Intranets are platform-independent, and no local software is required, as a browser is the only interface. LAN access, unlike intranet access, also requires the addition of an Ethernet card in the home computer.
One tool that will certainly be used by more home workers is the cable modem, whether to access a LAN or an intranet. Cable modems offer full-time access to the Internet at much faster speeds than today's phone-line modems. With an Internet browser and an Ethernet card, home workers can connect to the office remotely with exactly the same response times and efficiency they would expect if they were seated at their desk in the corporate office. Another IDC report, ''Western Europe Cable Modem Market Review and Forecast by Country, 1998-2003,'' notes that the number of West European cable modem users is expected to grow exponentially, with total revenues from cable modem shipments forecast to increase from $33 million in 1998 to nearly $550 million in 2003
Valerie Thompson