[Sigia-l] Intranet as desktop?

[John O'Donovan-INTERNET]

Hilary, funny you mention Notes - years ago during the early days of Win95 I
used Notes *as* the replacement desktop for a large corporate. 

The main business case was the advantages it gave in terms of allowing
simpler access to applications and data through a single interface. It also
utilised the ability of Notes to act as a repository for many types of data
and multimedia, all integrated with workflow and email.

As an approach I would say it is still a valid one but in my experience it
was fiddly keep everyone happy. Lots of conflicting issues. You should be
prepared for some the investment of time and resources to keep such a user
portal up to date though [Note: I'm not evangelising Notes and I left the
company years ago...]

> *it's impossible for an employee to miss a crucial piece of news
> * the company can build in features that lead to knowledge management 
> by being able to see and track all the documents an employee is 
> involved with.

I would add a few things to this as well - 

*it's great for generating community development within a company - in the
example above Notes integrated email and messaging with discussion forums,
databases, etc. By driving everybody through the same portal like access
point it got them more involved in this element as it was more "in your
face".
*Workflow and process management were easier as the Intranet desktop
integrated messages from multiple systems
*Branding and standardisation were strong features that made it easier to
control access to applications, whilst superimposing a look and feel
*If designed well it could make it easier for users to access applications
and information

There was another side of it around remote access so that you could allow
easy access for remote users to the same Intranet that was available in the
office. 

The bad side is lock-in to the task of keeping the portal up to date, some
users found it restrictive and integration of new tools could be tricky
(though rollout may be easier).

Cheers, 

jod


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