There exists a huge list of applications that originated on the Internet that have migrated to the intranet: search, content management, surveys, portals, wikis, blogs, podcasts, etc.  The reverse – applications migrating from intranet to Internet – is far more rare.

Sean McGrath of ITworld.com hypothesizes the reasons for the asymmetric flow of applications and why capitalizing on intranet investments for commercial resale is a tough hill (see The Asymmetric Web):

"Then came a period when Intranets were common and all of a sudden, software companies were not only hosting their own applications online but also making them available for deployment on intranets for a suitable fee. I would argue that part of the (fading) attraction of a big application framework such as, say, J2EE, was the idea that once developed as a J2EE webapp, an application can be hosted locally in exactly the same way as it is hosted on the Web.

Then began an awful period - which continues to this day, sadly -- of companies developing intranet applications and then concluding, erroneously, that the application can be deployed on the Web by just flicking the proverbial switch. There is an important asymmetry here between intranets and the internet. Applications can scale downwards - from internet to intranet - easily but the reverse direction - from intranet to internet - is rarely simple and often impossible. Millions of users, flash flood characteristics[1], five nines availability[2] are just some of the reasons (collectively referred to as "non-functional" requirements) why this asymmetry exists."

There are a few applications that originated inside the enterprise that have made it onto the commercial web such as financial systems (e.g. QuickBooks), customer relationship management (e.g. SalesForce.com), and others. Perhaps the biggest grand-daddy enterprise application moving to the Internet is electronic health records (see EHR enhances the doctor-patient relationship  and The business case for healthcare technology investment ).

The point though is simple: don’t develop intranet applications based on a business case of reselling that application on the Internet! An intranet application has a very defined focus – serving employees.

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media