Seeing the opportunity in scarcity, startup IntraNetics, Inc. of Woburn, Mass. introduced late last year IntraNetics97. Their first product takes the Intranet-in-a-box slogan literally, offering everything a company running Windows NT needs to deploy a small to mid-sized Intranet. Bundled with IntraNetics97 are the following building blocks:

• Web Server
• Mail Server
• Database Server
• Application Server
• Web Browsers
• 17 prebuilt Intranet applications

IntraNetics' product has a differnet agenda than Intranet application suites like Oblix Inc.'s IntraPower Suite 2.5 or e:Folders by IntraBlocks (now in beta). While the latter provide highly effective solutions for a narrow problem domain, IntraNetics97 goes for the brass ring with 17 pre-built, customizable applications that handle the most requested tasks on corporate Intranets.

The applications are grouped into 5 categories -- People, Places, Things, Time and Reference -- mapped to their respective apps below. I've included my comments where applicable.

People
Employees	Maintain and view employee contact records. Currently lacks LDAP integration found in Oblix's competing module.
Contacts	Manage external contacts. Maintain an activity log for each contact.
Org Chart	Maintains an up-to-date, navigable tree of the organization that links to the Employees application.
Handbook	Use this to build online Employee handbooks.
Places
Jobs	A basic job posting application. Would be good to enable a different interface for use as an application on both the company Intranet and external Web site, although users can build their own app to access the IntraNetics database.
Maps	Through an alliance with Vicinity Corporation, IntraNetics is able to provide detailed, customizable maps complete with driving directions. Nice.
Business Listings	Through the alliance with Vicinity Corp., IntraNetics is able to offer detailed business listings for over 16 million companies.
Things
Expenses	Simple application for maintaining expense reporting across the company.
Resumes	Allows candidates to submit resumes internally. Would benefit from being tied more closely to the Jobs application.
Documents	Simple document library application that allows for the categorization of files and documents. Through HTTP file upload, users can share files such as presentations, word processed documents, etc.
Software Library	Nice application for allowing employees to download corporate approved software. Comes pre-loaded with several utilities.
Time
Events	Searchable corporate calendar.
Reference
Newsletters	Create company-wide or departmental newsletters. Offers the ability to attach files and graphics, though graphics placement is limited.
Today's News	Through an alliance with Individual, Inc., IntraNetics is able to offer its users access to daily news stories from over 600 news sources, covering some 2600 categories. This is an excellent feature!
Press	Post company press releases to the Intranet.
Bulletins	Online company bulletin board for general messages, classifieds, etc.
Discussions	Online discussion groups for collaboration.

Add server and go

Setting up IntraNetics97 was remarkably easy considering the number of factors to be considered. I installed the software using Microsoft IIS 3.0 as the Web server and Microsoft Access 97 for a database. For outgoing e-mail, I used my existing Lotus Notes SMTP server.

The actual setup process consisted of creating a blank database in Access and saving it to my server. After that, running the setup wizard walked me through the rest of the process step-by-step. The whole deal took around 10 minutes! Of course, I had much of the required infrastructure in place. A full setup including mail server, Web server, and database server would probably take about an hour.

Once IntraNetics97 is installed, you have the option of customizing most of the features and screen templates. Many companies will find that not all of the 17 applications are useful to their organization. IntraNetics97 provides a means by which unwanted applications can be removed from the navigation menu. Almost every aspect of the IntraNetics97 interface can be customized allowing for a surprisingly flexible implementation.

One missing customization feature I would like to see is the option to turn off frames. IntraNetics97 makes heavy use of frames by placing a navigation frame on the left and the content frame on the right. The frames implementation is fine. I just prefer not to have frames on my site, as it has a tendency to confuse my users, as well as to make integration with search engines a problem. And while it is possible to launch IntraNetics applications full-screen by pointing at their individual URLs, the banners and backgrounds get ugly, wrapping on resolutions above 800x600. Frames should, IMHO, always be optional.

Pros and cons

What I liked most about IntraNetics97 is that it can use almost any ODBC-compliant database as its central data source -- good news for those of us with corporate standards and database servers already in place. As a result, IntraNetics97 smoothly integrates with existing Intranets, a wise design choice not found in every product. (See IDM's review of NetObjects TeamFusion for a counterexample.)

Also worth mentioning is the possibility of interfacing IntraNetics97's database with existing applications. I don't have to tell anyone how nice it would be to have a centralized database for housing all of your Intranet data. With this porduct, you could pull personnel data from the People database for use in custom or third-party applications running elsewhere on your Intranet. Thumbs up.

IntraNetics97 has a lot on the ball, especially for a version 1.0 entry, but there are several things it needs to do better to capture serious market share. Here is my wish list for future releases -- starting with a plea to IntraNetics to get away from the dreadful "model year" naming convention pioneered by Henry Ford for automobiles and William Gates for software products. IntraNetics is a fine name; leave '98 to Windows.

Adding support for LDAP [Lightweight Directory Access Protocol] is key. Currently, users are created and authenticated by way of NT's User Admin feature. Thus all IntraNetics users must reside within the NT domain hosting the application. It's no secret that Windows NT's native directory services leave much to be desired; the ability to integrate LDAP information would provide technological independence from Microsoft for IntraNetics and its curstomers.

IntraNetics' central storage metaphor could use some enhancements. I'd like to see the ability to embed HTML in text and memo fields, for example. This would enable storage of formatted text, important for bulleted lists in job requirements, emphasizing content, etc.

Searching is another feature that needs expansion in a future release. The current interface does a good job of allowing you to sift through information stored in the IntraNetics database. What is really needed, however, is the ability to search through files that have been uploaded as file attachments. Having worked with sophisticated search products from Verity, Hummingbird and others, I've come to the realization that every Intranet can and should offer users the ability to search through common office documents -- MS Office, WordPerfect and Adobe PDF for starters.

Not to get greedy, but another feature I expect to see down the road is data validation. IntraNetics97 does so much that the mere validation on entry of formatted data such e-mail addresses, phone numbers and zip codes might seem trivial. But a month after deployment users will be screaming for this nicety, since effective look-ups depend on data consistency. Along the same lines, why not add the ability to make selected fields required?

As promising as it is today, IntraNetics needs to deliver applications that give administrators complete field-by-field control over corporate data assets. In the long run, nothing less will impress.

Good enough to last

This may seem like a long list of carps, but I happen to know IntraNetics is already addressing them. They are currently working with several vendors, OEMs, and third parties to develop future additions to their application suite. Moreover, the company has announced plans to make additional applications available within a few months via download from their Web site. Also on the way is IntraNetics97 v1.01, a maintenance upgrade that boasts speed and performance enhancements of 25%-50%.

If IntraNetics continues to sign vendors and third-party developers, they have a good shot at that brass ring they've got their eye on.

What about the competition? At the moment, IntraNetics97 is in the enviable position of defining a market niche. While several other vendors are providing out-of-the-box Intranet solutions, none are as all-encompassing as IntraNetics97. I reviewed Oblix Inc.'s IntraPower Suite 2.0, now at v2.5, and found it an excellent Java-based suite that focuses mainly on people issues such as managing a corporate directory, contacts, etc. Oblix's product, which does support LDAP as well as numerous platforms, targets larger corporations with 500 or more users.

For the moment, IntraNetics can enjoy a window of opportunity -- pun intended -- to dominate NT-based, snall- to mid-sized intranets. Ironically, IntraNetics' toughest competitor could turn out to be Microsoft itself, through Small Business Server enhancements and freeware intranet apps. The startup needs to build a following now.

IntraNetics is priced from $2495 and comes in four versions, detailed below, to suit a variety of needs.

Version	Applications Only Version	Microsoft BackOffice Small Business Version	Microsoft Version	Netscape Version
Price	$4995	$2495	$7495	$7495
Features	17 IntraNetics applications; IntraNetics Web Application Engine; Data Direct ODBC Drivers from INTERSOLV	17 IntraNetics applications; IntraNetics Web Application Engine ; 25 client access licenses	17 IntraNetics applications; IntraNetics Web Application Engine; Data Direct ODBC Drivers from INTERSOLV; Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 (5 concurrent licenses); Mail Server (a POP3/SMTP mail server); Microsoft Internet Explorer (unlimited licenses)	17 IntraNetics applications; IntraNetics Web Application Engine; Data Direct ODBC Drivers from INTERSOLV; Netscape® Mail Server (100 licenses); Netscape® News Server 2.0; Netscape® Fast Track Server 2.0; Live Wire Pro (including Informix Online Workgroup Database with 32 concurrent licenses); Netscape® Communicator 4.0 (25 licenses)

Bottom line: IntraNetics97 is a well thought-out solution to a growing need. It's well worth looking for small- to mid-sized companies committed to deploying an Intranet on Windows NT. While IntraNetics97 doesn't quite cover all the bases, it goes further than other products towards this end, delivering an impressive feature set with minimum hassle and expense. Its open API and the prospect of imminent enhancements give IntraNetics97 the potential to be an out-of-the-box winner.

IntraNetics, Inc.
18 Commerce Way
Suite 2050
Woburn, MA 01801
Phone: 781-932-0960
Fax: 781-932-3355