Extranets are real, and the vision described above is becoming a reality in some companies. However, for those companies developing intranets, the move to integrate Internet technologies with their operational systems is slow. Existing Internet and intranet sites were designed for information retrieval, not operations. Crossing corporate boundaries Enhancing operational systems with Internet technologies is the next major phase in the Internet's development. Unless companies are better integrated with their customers and suppliers, electronic commerce will be limited to bits.
Bits are grand, and they represent an increasing percentage of the world economy.
However, everyone in the world eats atoms, drinks atoms, sleeps on atoms, and, until the advent of some Star Trekian utopia, they must be transported as set of contiguous atoms. Developing intranet applications can be a challenge, but the designer or architect can make some assumptions about their network and computing infrastructure. Computers, operating systems, and usage profiles are known, and network bandwidth can at least be estimated. Software can be optimized around this knowledge, and reliable systems built. Extranets have a different design center.