The headline from a republished column on DMW written by web aficionado, maverick blogster and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
“For some reason the fact that intranets can significantly outperform Internets and in particular THE Internet is a shocking concept. It shouldn't be,” writes Mark in IntraNets vs InterNets. “It’s a stagnant consumer platform (the Internet). We switched to browsers for most of our PC activity. We are getting to the point where the browser on the net as a platform is becoming stagnant.”
Cuban’s biggest complaint is the lack of quality video and multimedia on the Internet, and the websites that crash and timeout when downloading video. In theory, the intranet can do a much better job. Therefore, the Internet is Dead, Long Live the Intranet.
Cuban rightly asserts that most Internet throughput speeds are actually much less than 1 MBS (in North America. In Europe and
The nasty truth is that the vast majority of intranets feature little to no video and multimedia. Why? Because they don’t have the pipes and the infrastructure to carry and deliver video without crashing the intranet. And more pipes and infrastructure cost money. Why would executives invest more money in a cost center like the intranet when potential customers on the Internet are far more important than employees?
Cuban therefore is talking about the ideal intranet, or for the most part, the theoretical intranet. Yes, some companies have been providing rich multimedia on their intranet for many years. But they are a rare exceptions to the rule.
Not to burst Cuban’s bubble, but the Internet is a smorgasbord of video that has exploded in the past year. In case you’ve been locked in a closet or a Taliban cave, there’s this little website called YouTube. It’s the fourth most visited website on the Internet even though it’s only existed for a little more than a couple of years.
In theory, Cuban is mostly correct. In theory, communism works.
