Learning more about an Intranet Solution

In my last post I discussed a simple but powerful intranet application, Microsoft SharePoint. If you Google SharePoint, you will find plenty of material for your reading pleasure. To save you a little time, I went to Microsoft's site and found one of their benefits pages for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2003. Even though they now have a 2007 version out, I think the benefits are still applicable. When looking for an intranet solution, you can add these benefits to your checklist of functions you should be looking for. Here they are:

1. Provide a simple, familiar, and consistent user experience.
2. Boost employee productivity by simplifying everyday business activities.
3. Help meet regulatory requirements through comprehensive control over content.
4. Effectively manage and repurpose content to gain increased business value.
5. Simplify organization-wide access to both structured and unstructured information across disparate systems.
6. Connect people with information and expertise.
7. Accelerate shared business processes across organizational boundaries.
8. Share business data without divulging sensitive information.
9. Enable people to make better-informed decisions by presenting business-critical information in one central location.
10. Provide a single, integrated platform to manage intranet, extranet, and Internet applications across the enterprise.

For two companies I have assisted in an intranet solution, the two major functions they needed included security and connectivity from anywhere with an internet link. SharePoint fit very nicely into their plans. Both entities were up and running with their own site, provided by a hosting company, in less than a day. Long gone are the days when you had to have a bunch of programmers taking months to get you an intranet solution. Stay tuned for more on this subject as well as my upcoming annoucement after the first of the year for a free teleseminar on mastering an Intranet strategy. Have a wonderful New Year's holiday and I'll be back to the blog after the 1st. kb