Global Organizations Empowered By The Internet-Intranet-Extranet Technologies: Planning And Strategic Implications

摘要

Information technology simultaneously drives and facilitates global business. The World Wide Web (WWW) represents a paradigm shift of comparable significance to that of the printing press due to its capability of broadcasting not only the written word (static information) but also entire software applications (dynamic information). The WWW surfaces a new level of power and effectiveness for the Internet-Intranet-Extranet (Net) enabled organization similar to the benefits brought about by the three-tier/hyper-tier structure in the client-server computing model. The Internet acts as a natural extension of the intranet and the extranet, since the underlying technologies (e.g., TCP/IP, HTML, HTTP, CGI, URL) are continuous with one another. This enables global access to applications such as data warehousing, on-line analytical processing (OLAP), data mining and data visualization, thus contributing to the productivity of millions of knowledge workers across the globe. This also enables organizations to allow access outside of their own employee base to customers, partners, suppliers, and investors.