Quite a few mega-corporations are already using Intranets to reduce the time and money costs they incur in distributing information internally. Ford Motor Company, for example, expects that its entire salaried worldwide workforce will be connected to the company's Intranet by January 1, 1997. And employees at all levels of the Eli Lilly organization rely on their Intranet to give them access to text and database information systems. Smaller companies, too, use Intranets. For example, a 50-employee municipal planning department in Durham, Ontario set up an Intranet to distribute maps and zoning policies.
Bad weather strands a travelling marketing manager for a major medical supplies company.
She had been counting on getting home to New Jersey in time to prep her sales people before they headed off to California for the annual meeting of the American Medical Association. She knows now that she won't make it back East. So, with her laptop and a standard modem connection, she phones into the company's Intranet. Presenting her password gets her immediate access to just-tabulated customer survey information stored on the company's central computers. She posts the new presentation on the Intranet and emails each of them about the new presentation.