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Intranet professionals already know Mindbridge Software because of its popular enterprise-level intranet product, IntraSmart, which debuted in 1999. Designed for companies with more than 75 employees, IntraSmart is an instant intranet that offers a full-service solution with only a little customization. That's fine for larger companies, but what about smaller businesses that don't have the resources but still need a way to share information?

For smaller organizations, Mindbridge has just released IntraNet on Demand, a hosted solution that duplicates all the perks of IntraSmart but does so in a product that's accessible for small business.

Scott Testa, the COO of Mindbridge, explains that getting set up with IntraNet on Demand is a breeze, even for those with almost no technical experience. Sign up for an account on the Web site and a representative will call, even giving an online demo to interested customers.

To create an intranet, users enter their company's information into simple forms, detailing the employees, access restrictions, and departments. According to Testa, users can have a simple intranet up in as little as 15 minutes. The amount of customization, of course, is up to the user. Alter the look by using one of the ten different templates and adding in your own corporate colors and logs. Activate SSL during setup, for a small extra fee, to make sure your data is always encrypted.

Because IntraNet on Demand is a hosted solution, there's nothing to download. Once the intranet is set up, simply distribute the URL to your employees and have them log in with Internet Explorer (version 4 or above) or Mozilla. When they do, they'll find a document management and sharing system with a text search, an online bulletin board, a spot for company announcements, a form generator, a corporate directory and address book, and more. In a nutshell, it's the same group of essential apps as in IntraSmart, but in a hosted solution. Need to schedule a meeting? Simply check the schedules of your group members on the intranet to find a time when everyone's free. Want to find a job in a different part of the company? Look to the in-house job board.

IntraNet on Demand can grow as your company grows. If you're adding more employees and it's no longer cost effective to have a hosted solution, you can easily make the jump to IntraSmart, Mindbridge's in-house product. With the same features and design, your employees will probably never know that anything has changed. Or you can migrate the other way, as well: companies using IntraSmart can switch to IntraNet on Demand with no loss in data if a hosted solution seems like the better way to go.

IntraNet on Demand's pricing works on a sliding scale, depending on the number of employees using the system. For 10 users, a company pays $76 per month and for 50 users, it pays $255 per month. Contact them for other prices. Storage space is sold separately, with the first 100MB of storage free. After that, companies pay a yearly rate; 100MB extra is $150 per year and 500MB extra is $500 per year, for example. If you're concerned about your data being housed on a mixed-purpose server, you can get a dedicated server for a one-time fee of $2,000. Mindbridge performs daily backups and will mail out backup CDs for a small extra charge.

If you're a small business owner and having an intranet in minutes sounds good to you, click over to IntraNet on Demand. You'll wonder how you got along without it.

With a glance at IntraNet on Demand's calendar page, users can see all their appointments, memos, and to-do items.