Toby Ward's definition of an intranet (first committed to paper in 2001 in the Finding ROI white paper):

A private network, similar to the Internet and using the same protocols and technology, that is contained within an enterprise. It may consist of many inter-linked local area networks (LANs), desktop computers, websites and portals, and email system(s). However, in common vernacular, the intranet is the internal website home page that is for employees only -- and the other internal websites that link to it.

Wikipedia definition of an intranet:

An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet technologies to securely share any part of an organization's information or operational systems with its employees. Sometimes the term refers only to the organization's internal website, but often it is a more extensive part of the organization's computer infrastructure and private websites are an important component and focal point of internal communication and collaboration.

No surprises, really.

Another term that causes confusion, more so than the intranet, is “portal” or “corporate portal” (sometimes referred to as an “enterprise information portal”).

Toby Ward's definition of an intranet portal (first committed to paper in version 2 (2003) of the Finding ROI white paper):

A primary website on the enterprise intranet. A web-based gateway to most, if not all, tools and information on the enterprise intranet. The portal can be a ‘catch all’ for all of the intranet, or a business unit or function specific portal (i.e. Sales or HR portal). The characteristics that best distinguish it from a standard intranet home page include:

1- application integration

2- advanced security (authentication / authorization / personalization)

3- enterprise search (search that extends beyond the intranet home page, but doesn't necessarily search every single shared drive, email folder & enterprise database).

Wikipedia definition of an intranet portal:

An intranet portal is the gateway that unifies access to all enterprise information and applications[1] on an intranet. It is a tool that helps a company manage its data, applications, and information more easily, and through personalized views. Some portal solutions today are able to integrate legacy applications, other portals objects, and handle thousands of user requests. For enterprise user, it is also known as an enterprise portal.

Now the lines blur somewhat as different consultants and vendors use different definitions (mostly to serve their sales needs). I've never seen a portal that “unifies access to all” enterprise information and applications, though “unifies access” is open to interpretation. If a simple hypertext link to a database qualifies as unified access then perhaps this is true. However, this is why my definition for the past 6 years was written to say “most, if not all, tools and information.” I don't think a portal is an “all” or “nothing” scenario, but it certainly seems to fit if the portal unifies “most” information and applications.

Why are we even talking about this?

The question once again arose last week when I wrote about the importance of strategy and planning for an intranet (see Intranet strategy & execution). An intranet strategy (which may include one universal plan or multiple plans) should encompass all internal facing websites, and apply standards across the network, including all social media, email and related systems.

The intranet strategy should include the use of a portal (where applicable), internal websites, social media, shared drives, and related knowledge management systems. Exclusions might include specialized applications that are for a small, minority audience such as senior executives and the finance team (e.g. Oracle financials, board of directors extranet, CRM system, etc.)

Here's the rub: regardless of your definition, you require a solid intranet strategy that defines what can be done by whom (roles and responsibilities) and according to defined standards (rules).

Get the funding your intranet needs: Winning support for your intranet/intranet 2.0 initiative (free webinar)

Having trouble selling an intranet redesign? Or securing funding for a new CMS or social media tool?

During times of economic downturn, organizations are seeking to discover new ways to make the most of their investments, but too many fail to understand the intranet's value and potential to increase business performance.

Join this free webinar to learn how to convince executives to cough up the cash for your intranet redesign.

• Date: June 25, 2009

• Location: Free Webinar 12 pm EDT

See Winning support for your intranet/intranet 2.0 initiative (free webinar)

RELATED READING:

Intranet strategy & execution

Finding ROI (Intranet ROI) white paper (free)

NEED HELP REDESIGNING YOUR INTRANET?

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While generic in nature, there are some components of SharePoint that require specific consideration, and are discussed and addressed by the interviewed subject matter experts and the included case studies (see Planning for SharePoint Success).

“Without proper architecture and governance, I can guarantee you that SharePoint will fail,” says Bob Mixon, President of Mixon Consulting, addressing the annual Enterprise 3 conference in San Diego.

In particular, the powerful Team Site features and easy deployment features (Site Collections) of SharePoint make it even more demanding of a rigorous plan and detailed governance model. While intranet governance provides clarity and rules: namely the titles, roles and responsibilities of its owners, managers, stakeholders and contributors.

Sadly, very few organizations actually have a well-defined governance model, and many of those have spent hundreds-of-thousands to millions of dollars on their website or intranet – amounting to extraordinary investments left to chance and execution on a whim.

According to the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey:

• only 47% of organizations have a defined governance model (32% have 6,000 employees or more; 11% have 30,000 employees or more);

• of the tools and platforms being used by survey participants, a whopping 47% are using SharePoint (MOSS 2007) in some shape or form.

Intranet Sprawl

As IP technology has advanced corporate intranets have become more complex and interactive including human resource and purchasing applications, collaboration tools, business intelligence and real-time reporting tools. Some organizations without intranet governance and enterprise standards (for web page and content creation) have seen the birth of individual intranets for every department and work team. “Do-what-you-like” was the only rule and the corporate network became the wild west or ‘intranet sprawl’.

'Intranet sprawl' can be a poisonous side-effect of SharePoint Team Site and site collection use without the proper “rules” for deploying and managing sites. However, its not merely a SharePoint problem. At one point at the turn of the millennium, IBM's network was choked with approximately 10,000 intranet sites before they undertook a governance process and federation (consolidation campaign) that saved the company untold millions (IBM claims its saved more than a $1 billion).

Perhaps more so than most, SharePoint (MOSS 2007 or WSS) requires a governance model. I categorize intranet governance by four broad approaches or models:

• Decentralized (no single owner; do-what-you-like)

• Centralized a single owner or department controls it all; highly bureaucratic; common in small organizations)

• Collaborative (shared ownership via committee)

• Hybrid, centralized (single owner, with collaborative accountability, decentralized content ownership)

Learn more about planning and governance for the corporate intranet, with a specific focus on MOSS 2007, during our free webinar Planning for SharePoint Success (April 13).

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Here are some stats:

• 55% of organizations have implemented or are considering implementing SharePoint (Global Intranet Trends 2009 report - 227 participant organizations)

• 46% of those companies using social media on the intranet are using SharePoint(Intranet 2.0 Global Survey – 430+ participant organizations)

• Only 47% of organizations have a defined governance model (Intranet 2.0 Global Survey)

• 70% use at the department level; only 38% use it at the enterprise level (AIIM)

Many communications professionals have asked, “Is SharePoint good for my company intranet?”

SharePoint for Communicators is a webinar answers the question with advice on how to proceed.

In this five-week online workshop, we’ll examine MOSS as a technology platform, and as a communications platform for managing content including news and social media. MOSS is not known as a strong solution for a large-size enterprise intranet. But it is good starting platform in a Microsoft environment, and is very good for team and group collaboration. This workshop will consider all of the pros and cons of MOSS, with expert opinion and advice for non-techie business users and communicators. Included in this Webinar will be:

1. Introduction to MOSS—An overview of the technology in non-techie language.

2. Pros and cons of MOSS for communicators—The good, bad and the things Microsoft won’t always tell you.

3. MOSS for content management—The elements and functionality of the content management system and how it compares to other systems.

4. Planning & Governance—MOSS can in fact create more problems without the necessary planning and governance. We’ll tell you what you need to prepare.

5. Plug-ins and alternatives to MOSS—MOSS is a very complex platform, but there are many additional modules and plug-ins that can enhance it greatly… We’ll also compare MOSS to other alternative solutions.

Webinars are asynchronous-you participate when it’s convenient for you. A new text-based lecture is posted each Monday morning, but you can take advantage of it whenever you have the time. Be sure to watch the video demo of the webinar format to determine if it’s right for your professional development needs.

Register for SharePoint for Communicators webinar

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(AARHUS, DENMARK: jboye08) “MOSS is very good for very good in smaller, workgroup environments,” says Alan Pelz-Sharpe, analyst, CMS Watch and his presentation on Evaluating SharePoint. “It’s not traditionally very good for 5,000 or 10,000 concurrent users.”

 Content and Code's visual representation of the SharePoint Platform 

CMS Watch’s approach / focus to evaluating MOSS:

• Customers that are making a purchase today (or shortly)

• Independent, specific advice for end users and buyers

• We never work for vendors… and in fact can be (even) ‘rude’ or honest about some products

• We have a reputation of being anti-SharePoint; not true, we’re independent and in fact we’ve recommended MOSS to many

• Sometimes however MOSS has not always been accurately advertised; not they’re (MS) dishonest, but it (MOSS) not always the best fit for an organization

PROS:

• MOSS is really unusual: a lot of different dynamics

• Most people are fairly happy with SharePoint

• SharePoint is an end-user’s dream with some exceptions; users are usually very happy

• For building small collaborative environments, it’s nearly perfect (I’m exaggerating for affect)

• File sharing

• Team sites

• Well priced for small organizations

CONS:

• Those that aren’t happy with it are those that use MOSS where it’s not a good fit

• Those that aren’t typically happy are those that are in-charge of governance, legal, etc.

• Before MOSS there was chaos… now the chaos is more visible with MOSS (and its bringing more visibility to this chaos)

• Enterprise content management (ECM) which demands strict controls (compared with Documentum, Oracle, FileNet and IBM)

• Very poor at index/search of non-MOSS info

• Search results can be unexpected out of the box

• Project / task tracking

• Social networking

• Discussion & collaboration and communication

• Trouble consuming its own RSS feeds (authentication issue)

• Pricey for larger organizations

Case study example (editor’s note: SharePoint sprawl):

• There’s a bank HQ’d in the UK and they have SharePoint… started using it as a test in 2006 and immediately upgraded to MOSS in 2007… and now have 23,000 instances of MOSS… and it’s a massive problem for the bank

• The way it was deployed and structured was deplorable… that’s the bank’s fault, not Microsoft’s

• “How to bring it under control? I’m not entirely certain…”

MOSS SharePoint history:

• Initially a countermove to the success of Lotus Notes

• When SharePoint was formally launched in 2003 MS had very low expectations

• The initial success was very high… MS was stunned and very pleased

• MS managers were stunned… “Why is it such a big success?”

• The success was in users deploying it as a light-weight portal

• MOSS launched in 2007 and updated to .NET 2.0 / 3.0 as a development platform

Recurring Threats:

• Separation between underlying “free” Windows platform and richer portal product with extra services, for a fee

• If you’re an MS enterprise client, you will get most MOSS services for free

• Traditional disconnect between SharePoint and .NET (mostly resolved in 2007) (e.g. MS is very large but very much like a college campus with many different groups and departments… that don’t necessarily talk to each other… and there are times that products get ‘out-of-sync’ with each other

• Endemic confusion about what resides in SharePoint and what does not (and licensing implications)

• MOSS is very good for very good in smaller, workgroup environments (it’s not traditionally very good for 5,000 or 10,000 concurrent users) (e.g. Oracle on the other hand focuses on larger enterprises and are traditionally  “terrible” at the workgroup level deployments)

• MOSS has to run on a MS technology stack (.NET, Windows Server, SQL server)

• “I’m not really convinced that there really is any business intelligence (in MOSS)… though MS says there is.”

Current SharePoint Product Universe:

WSS

• Foundation components, free with Windows

• Basic collaborative features

MOSS

• Fee based server product that extends WSS

• Advanced features like CMS, personalization, forms processing and Excel services

• Some enterprise features not included

SharePoint Search

• Search engine for MOSS

• Can crawl a number of different content sources, including Exchange (email)

• MOSS Standard can only index 500,000 pages

Forms Server

• Form rendering and processing (“One of the best features of MOSS… I love this. Really good value add.”)

• Used in conjunction with InfoPath to deliver electronic forms via the Web

• Still retain interactive attributes provided via InfoPath

Key functions:

• Functional capabilities:

• Enhanced search

• Business data catalog

• Excel services

• Forms services

• Shared services: farm-level services

• User import/management

• Search engaging configuration

• Basic usage reporting

• Profile-based site for individual users

• MySite

• Both profile and personalizable home page

• Somewhat controversial

• Actually provisions entire site collection

Things that can affect pricing:

• Extent of external connectors and licenses for “Internet Site” licenses

• “Enterprise vs. Standard CALs (licensing)”

• Search

• Forms

• Implementation costs

• Customization costs

• Systems integration

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Only 12 enterprise portal vendors remain on Gartner’s latest magic quadrant for “horizontal portal products.”

The only changes are the subtraction of BEA, now part of Oracle, and the addition of Covisint and RedHat (though lest they be seen as ‘prescient’ I had included them in my Portal magic quadrant two years ago!). Also added to this year’s quadrant is the one to really watch: Liferay.

Some of Gartner’s findings include (most of which I highlighted two years ago):

• Mashups, lightweight composite applications based on Web-oriented architectures (WOAs), could emerge as alternatives to horizontal portal frameworks for creating enterprise Web environments
• Increased interest in Web 2.0
• By 2011, Gartner expects at least 10% of new enterprise portal projects in the Global 2000 to use open-source horizontal portal frameworks

Frankly, I’m surprised more organizations are not using portals. The Intranet 2.0 study reveals that only 10% of respondents (some 230 respondent organizations thus far) use a portal product to power their intranet. However, these solutions are complex, and pricey.

I will not be doing an update of the Prescient Portal magic quadrant just yet: there haven’t been enough significant changes… the only one is to remove BEA’s label under Oracle.

I do however note the following trends:

• Gartner is spot on: open-source will become more and more popular
• Liferay is the challenger to watch (Gartner thinks its RedHat)
• Plone could well find its way onto the quadrant but Python holds it back
• IBM is the portal leader and champion
• Microsoft SharePoint (MOSS 2007) is the darling
• Product consolidation is largely over as IBM, Oracle and Microsoft will own 95% of the total money put into portal solutions (but Vignette won’t last much longer and will be bought)
• Usability and price will be the principal weaknesses that scare buyers
• Web 2.0 functionality will continue to grow but not be a primary consideration for buyers

RELATED READING:

The Intranet Portal Blueprint

Pros and cons for enterprise intranet portals

Another portal bites the dust

ALSO:

Don’t forget: you cannot get the full results of the Intranet 2.0 study without taking the survey.  Please take 10 minutes to take the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey and you’ll get a copy of the full results including the good, bad and learned lessons – ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT TO PARTICIPATE IF YOU DON’T HAVE INTRANET 2.0 TOOLS.

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SharePoint (MOSS 2007) is robust solution, but its not for every organization. Here's some practical advice from Prescient and the authors of The SharePoint Report 2008 from CMS Watch.

“What began as a simple collaboration utility in 2001, and morphed in a portal product in 2003, has become – at least in Redmond’s eyes (home of Microsoft) – a full-blown information management platform,” write the authors of CMS Watch’s The SharePoint Report 2008, which included Shawn Shell of Consejo Inc., and a cadre of CMS Watch analysts (including founder Tony Byrne and Janus Boye).

“However, what remains less clear more than a year after the launch of SharePoint 2007 (MOSS), is where the product actually fits into the enterprise,” adds the report.