InformationWeek

Intranet Tools

Corporations seek internal Web applications--and major vendors are happy to help

By Clinton Wilder , Katherine Bull , and Caryn Gillooly
Issue date: Nov. 6, 1995

New internet tools from major vendors are helping to accelerate the growth of corporate networks based on the World Wide Web, allowing companies to develop their own private "Intranets" for enterprise applications and communications, both inside and outside the corporate firewall.

With new products ready to launch, Oracle, IBM, Novell an d others are spurring the rapid evolution of the Web from a venue for posting home page information to a serious network for deploying enterprise applications.

At the Internet World trade show in Boston on Oct. 30, Oracle will unveil PowerBrowser, a Web browser that includes application development tools based on Java, a programming language licensed from Sun Microsystems Inc. The toolset will let corporate developers write Web-enabled applications that link to any corporate database.

Also at Internet World, sources say, IBM will announce its intention to bundle its Web server software with Lotus' Notes Server, allowing corporate users to access and integrate internal Notes data with information pulled down from the Internet. And Novell will unveil its first major Internet product, the NetWare Web Server, a series of NetWare Loadable Modules that will enable the hosting of internal and external Web servers on NetWare LANs.

The development of private Intranets provides opportunities for companie s to use the Web as an alternative--or complement--to groupware products such as Lotus Notes and Novell's GroupWise. "Building corporatewide Webs makes sense when distributing text around the company," says Larry Ellison, Oracle's president and CEO. "Accounting or manufacturing applications, where security is really critical, don't make sense. But document-centric applications, like Notes-class apps, can be moved over to the Web. Corporations that have created Notes networks will switch to Internet development because it is cheaper and better for doing the same things."

Big Blue's Big Difference
IBM begs to differ. A crucial part of its Internet strategy is Notes, and specifically InterNotes--Lotus' tool for linking its flagship groupware product with the Internet. "Application features like forms, tables, and full-text search are pretty hard to do today on the Web, but they're already in Notes," says John Patrick, VP of Internet applications at IBM. "InterNotes maps across our entire Internet strategy."

That competitive battle will play out against a backdrop of companies seeking to leverage the Web for uses other than simply posting information.

The wave of the future in Web sites may be home pages such as those of Federal Express and United Parcel Service, which give customers access to corporate databases to track packages online.

"Using the Web for service, rather than just marketing information, will be critical," says Fergus O'Daly, chairman and CEO of New York advertising agency Poppe Tyson Inc., whose clients include Chrysler, Sony Electronics, and Pfizer. "Players like IBM and Oracle will help bring that to the forefront."

Because of the Internet's universal TCP/IP and HTML standards, using the Web as an applications platform solves a headache for large distributed applications: interoperability. Business consulting firm Booz, Allen & Hamilton in New York will use Oracle's PowerBrowser with Knowledge Online 2.0, which is a billing, time, expense, and staffing applicat ion based on an Oracle7 database. "You can build applications using these tools and not worry about cross-platform issues on the front end, and you can centrally manage the applications," says Aron Dutta, a Booz, Allen principal.

Booz, Allen isn't alone. According to a study of 170 companies by the Business Research Group, a market research firm in Boston, nearly a quarter of companies already have implemented or plan to implement a Web server as an internal groupware platform, or Intranet. An additional 20% are studying the use of Web servers inside the corporation.

Power Tools
PowerBrowser is Oracle's first foray into the Internet development market. A test version of PowerBrowser is in use at 300 sites, says Marc Benioff, Oracle's senior VP of Web workgroup systems division. Oracle will distribute copies of PowerBrowser for free over its Internet site ( http://www.oracle.com ); general release is scheduled for January.

PowerBrowser is an object-orie nted environment that includes a basic interpreter, an HTML layout editor, Sun's Java, and Oracle's 300-Kbyte SQL database, called Blaze. A key feature is that PowerBrowser's programming language is Microsoft's Visual Basic, making the product potentially attractive to the world's more than 2 million Visual Basic applications developers. In contrast, Netscape's Navigator uses Java and LiveScript, a scripting language developed by Netscape. Oracle's PowerBrowser will also include Adobe Acrobat, just as Navigator does.

Analysts are upbeat about the availability of a browser/applications development tool from a database vendor. "Right now, all people can do is look at HTML documents and do some cut-and-paste things," says Rob Tholemeier, VP at the Meta Group, a consulting firm in Stamford, Conn. "What is more interesting is to tie in your corporate database technology so that Web pages can be manipulated."

Also to be announced on Oct. 30 is Oracle's WebServer 1.0, in beta now and set for November availab ility. At a cost of $4,995, the WebServer links a corporation's database to the Internet. Oracle's WebServer plans include WebTV, set for release in the second quarter of 1996, which will provide a video interface between PowerBrowser and WebServer 2.0.

According to sources, Oracle is also negotiating contracts with Sun and Silicon Graphics Inc. to license PowerBrowser for use in their server products, and with telecom vendors such as AT&T and MCI to bundle PowerBrowser with their Internet services.

Novell's NetWare Web Server announcement will be the first of many in the next several months coming from the company's new Internet Commerce Division, set up recently to focus on giving users integrated access to commercial online services, the Internet, and Novell's own NetWare Connect Services network. "We recognize that the Internet is important, and that Novell's not perceived as being a big Internet player," says Vic Langford, VP and general manager of Novell's new division in San Jose, Calif. " We need a cohesive set of products and strategies and a plan for the future."

More Exposure
Novell's NetWare Web Server is integrated with NetWare Directory Services, the global directory included in NetWare 4.1. With this tie, a company's home page can actually expose part of the company's directory tree to the general public, which can then browse the corporate network.

"This Web Server would definitely interest me," says Bob Hilton, director of MIS at the Open University in Orlando, Fla. "If it's as nice and easy to do as a Novell server--and there would be no additional security problems--that would definitely be something I'd look at."

In 1996, Novell plans to add its much-touted Corsair and Ferret technologies to the Web Server. Corsair offers a graphical way for users to access the network or online services from their desktop machines. Ferret provides browsing capabilities similar to Netscape Navigator, but for a NetWare Directory Services-based network.

Meanwhile, Collabr a Software, acquired by Netscape in September, announced on Oct. 26 the first step toward integrating its electronic-forum software with Netscape's Navigator so companies can tie together internal and external information. A new version of Collabra Share, 2.1, will allow Web links to be embedded in Collabra Share documents. The links will let users jump to a Web page, an FTP site, or an Internet newsgroup from within Collabra Share.

--with additional reporting by Stephanie Stahl

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