All of these make scientific computing technology available to the broader audience of experimental scientists. Such programs require careful design, focusing them on the solution of specific, tractable problems. Users also need a clear understanding of the assumptions and limitations that underlie them. But, given these prerequisites, they can provide valuable insight and information at the point in the research process where they can be most usefully applied. The practical context in which much of this expanded use of Web-based scientific computing tools is occurring is not the wider Internet, it is the intranet.
Intranets are proprietary networks within organizations.
Much of the required software is inexpensive or free. Pilot projects can be implemented rapidly across an organization. John Wodehouse, advanced informatics and technology specialist at Glaxo Wellcome, has been closely involved in developing a corporate intranet comprising more than 2,000 computers and serving 4,000 users worldwide. The Web transformed this from loosely linked islands of information into a general means of accessing information and performing computational tasks. But the power of the intranet for a scientific organization lies in providing simulation, informatics, and productivity tools through the same medium as this corporate information.