Definition : What is an Intranet?

Learn what an intranet is, its benefits for businesses, and how you can quickly set up your own.

customizable social intranet

What is an Intranet?

A company intranet is a private, secure Website that enables employees to communicate, collaborate, share documents and other information, and access productivity tools. An intranet is often hosted and maintained on company servers and can only be accessed by internal employees.

Recently, intranets have been used to enhance customer relationships as Web-accessible extranets or customer portals. Companies can set up a custom built intranet, or a hosted, cloud based intranet.



customizable social intranet

Hosted Intranet (or Cloud ASP Intranet)

The ASP (application service provider) or software-as-a-service approach, which HyperOffice offers,  allows users to access all the tools they need to build their company intranet over the web. This is also known as an “asp intranet”, “hosted intranet” or “saas intranet”. A variation, called the “social intranet” is also gaining in popularity these days. The benefits of this approach:



custom intranet

LESS HASSLE

You are not required to set up at any servers or software. Everything is managed by the intranet vendor.

custom intranet icon

LESS EXPENSIVE

You pay a low subscription fee per month, and are saved the costs of hardware, software and staff.

social intranet

AUTOMATIC UPDATES

All new features and improvements made by the intranet vendor are immediately available to you.

industrial  intranet

ACCESS ANYWHERE

Cloud software, by its very nature, is “anywhere accessible”. Your users have access to the intranet anywhere with an internet connection.



intranet server

Custom-built Intranet

The second option is to hire or commission a dedicated development team to create your own customized intranet. Although this approach allows companies to build a highly specialized intranet, it involves huge costs and effort, which makes it unsuitable for small to medium companies.

  • Initial costs to purchase necessary hardware and intranet software for development range from $10,000 to $80,000. Plus, maintenance and upgrade costs.
  • On average, intranet application development ranges from 6-9 months.
  • Expert technical support staff is needed to deploy application code and data backup, software evaluations and upgrades, and bug and security checks.

Tools that a modern intranet should have

The best intranet solutions in the market offer you the following selection of tools



group chat

Custom Landing Pages

document management solution

Document Management

task management

Project Management

shared calendars

Shared Group Calendars

online contact management

Directory & Address Books

video meetings

Chat and Video Meetings