Intranet Recommendations

by Arnold Kling
July 7, 1996
revised November 3, 1996

This is the first in a series of monthly essays on the business implications of Internet technology. Feedback on these essays is highly appreciated. The focus of the essays is on how technology can be applied in business. In addition, I like to think about the implications for the stock prices of companies such as Netscape. For an index of my occasional writing on Web technology and business, going back to July 1994, see Business and Economic Issues.

Recently, I have done a lot of research on Internet software, for a few reasons:

I am considering an upgrade of the server for The Homebuyer's Fair, a public Web site that I have been operating for two years. My main motivation for upgrading is to take advantage of server programming interfaces that now are available.

A company that wants to set up an Intranet for its dozens of offices recently asked me for advice.

My 13-year-old daughter discovered that some of her friends have home pages, so now she wants one.

Here are my conclusions (to find out more about my reasoning, follow the links):

My bias is that Internet technology has become the most economical software deployment platform. For corporate software development, it represents as dramatic a change as the introduction of sound in the movie industry.
For the Intranet server, I would recommend Microsoft Internet Information Server for most companies, even though for myself and the company that I am advising I would lean toward servers from Netscape. This software decision dictates the choice of hardware.
November update: For the public Web site, we now are using a Netscape server. See LiveWire.
For an Intranet development tool kit, I will recommend HTML Transit, even though for my Internet server I continue to create HTML by hand using Windows Notepad. October update: I propose a more radical approach, to Convert People, Not Documents
I am recommending that the company try to convert an important legacy system to the Intranet, rather than start with an innocuous pilot.
To maintain and host the Intranet site, I am recommending that the company outsource the function, even though the outsourcing firm protests that this means it isn't really an Intranet.
I don't recommend that the company try to develop Java applications, nor do I plan to write any Java code for my own Web site.
When you finish these pages, here is some information for further reading.

To read the rest of this article in sequence, starting with either my my bias or with the rationale for choosing a particular server, continue.

© 1996, The Homebuyer's Fair, LLC. This material may be linked to but may not be copied without permission. It has not yet been submitted for publication in print format. Publishers interested may contact arnoldsk@us.net.

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