The major difference, he explains, is that people outside the corporation are not allowed access. Although there are no statistics yet showing how much Intranets save in terms of productivity and company resources, Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., estimates more than one in five large corporations now run Intranets, up from almost none in 1994. Intranets usually begin as a grassroots effort, with just a few people putting up Web pages because it was fun. Efforts like these quickly attract enough users on the corporate network to warrant the attention of top management. Now Qualcomm has five full-time people and 50 others at headquarters contributing, along with Snyder and engineer Ray Keller in Boulder, who spend a few hours every week adding local information.
Companies can create one set of Web pages that can be viewed on any type of operating system.
ESI even has local restaurant menus from which employees can order lunch. Other companies use an Intranet for videoconferencing, swapping files, inventory, product information and pricing. We have been able to get important information out of people's desks and notebooks and onto the Web where anybody anywhere in the company can reach it whenever they need it. This is a huge benefit. Users type in any employee's name and his or her photo pops up, along with their position in Qualcomm's hierarchy and the name of an immediate supervisor, the people on the same level, and the people who report to him or her.