Paul Chin
(postpaulchinonline.com)

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• Part 1 - Three options to building an intranet
  
• Part 2 - Are you ready to build in-house?
  
• Part 3 - Outsourcing your intranet

People become homeowners for different reasons. Some like the challenge of designing and constructing their own house. Others like to have the same level of autonomy and customization but decide to contract the actual labour to third parties. If you're just looking to find a nice, cozy place to put up your feet and relax, however, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel.

It may not be in your budget or your area of expertise to build something from scratch, and it's entirely possible that your needs can be met with something that's already on the market. With a little bit of legwork and research, you'll be able to find that place to call your own without having to lace up your steel-toed boots and donning a hardhat. After all, why spend a lot of time, money, and effort to construct a house that may very well already exist down the street?

In this, the fourth part of my series "A Home for You Intranet," I'll be discussing the process of selecting a purchased solution, or what's been dubbed an "intranet-in-a-box." Let's review some of the pros and cons of choosing to buy rather than build:

Advantages of buying a solution

You don't require as much technical or programming expertise when compared to building something from scratch. Many new software packages on the market today cater to content providers with limited technical expertise. Implementation time is relatively short since you already have a foundation with which to work. Intranet-in-a-box solutions provide you with a basic intranet template on which to build. Unlike the innumerable variables associated with building from scratch, packaged intranet software solution are ready to install right out of the box.

Disadvantages of buying a solution

It's a new tool to learn. You're not only buying the solution, you're also buying into the tool that builds the solution. Every software vendor has its own development environment in which it works. Unfortunately, many software vendors pack so many bells and whistles into their products that you often need to sift through the glitz to get at the core of what you need. You may wind up locking yourself into a particular vendor's solution or proprietary technology. This will be discussed in greater detail a little later. Packaged solutions offer less customization, and are not as flexible as building from scratch. This means that you may have to bend your requirements, depending on the abilities and functionality of the software.

You need to realize that purchasing a house means you're getting someone else's idea of a home. It's been designed and constructed based on a stranger's requirements, not yours. In this respect, a purchased house may not meet your exact needs in every aspect, but this is why we have renovations. Nowhere does it say you have to keep that tacky wallpaper in the guest room or the faded green carpet that smells as though Rover has been a little too familiar with it.

There's no single solution out there that will meet your every need unless your intranet is to be a very simple one. Product selection is a give-and-take process; Solution A may meet Requirements 1, 2, and 4, but not 3, and Solution B may meet Requirements 1, 3, and 5, but not 2. What you're able to do with your intranet, like your house, is limited to the software solution's functionality. If it can't support one of your requirements, you'll have to either find a package that will, or bend your requirements. It's up to you to determine which requirements are vital and which are WIBNIs (Wouldn't It Be Nice If). You may have dreamed of waking up with the sun on your face but if your bedroom happens to face the west, there's nothing you can really do short of tearing down half the walls.

Now, as you go house hunting, keep these five points in mind:

1. The cost of the solution
2. The vendor's install-base and market placement
3. Software technology
4. Software functionality
5. The learning curve

The Cost of the Solution

When buying a house, you have to factor in more than just the basic cost of the house. You also need to factor in any additional costs to get the house in a liveable state: repairs, painting, refurnishing and decorating.

Assuming that you already have the infrastructure—Web server(s), a security backbone, data integrity procedures—in place to support your solution, you will need to calculate the overall solution cost beyond the initial software purchase. Let's break out the calculator:

• Software:
  The cost of the package plus any licensing fees. Some solutions charge on a per node basis so if you plan to implement a load-balanced, multiserver installation, you'll need to factor in the additional licensing fees.
• Manpower:
  The personnel required to install and implement the solution.
• Upgrades and/or add-ons:
  The costs for software upgrades and/or add-ons that extend the functionality of the basic software solution.
• Technical support:
  Most software makers offer Technical Support either through a hotline or on-site for customers who need assistance with implementation or troubleshooting.
• Training and/or learning material: Many packages don't come with adequate manuals beyond basic installation instructions. Training and/or in-depth usage manuals will be required to maximize your knowledge of the software's capabilities.