Web Intranet - Shared & SaaS

Web-based products form the largest group of commercial Intranet applications. In this group there are 2 general web Intranet categories, shared-applications and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications. In general, web Intranet applications remove the need for developing internal resources and provide installation, configuration, technical support, software updates, security updates, and technical support… all of which are viewed as very desirable attributes by most companies.

Web-based Shared Intranet - To my mind once a company commits to a shared-Intranet application (meaning an application that provides a common platform for several user groups) then the ability to make changes or to customize the application is severely restricted, if not impossible. Still this solution remains quite popular because there is often high simplicity associated with the application and all the other advantages of a web-based application are implicit.

Web-based SaaS Intranet - SaaS Intranet applications are gaining popularity and indeed offer an organization the most flexibility outside of server-based Intranet. SaaS offers the advantages of web-based applications mentioned above but there is also an added benefit. SaaS is a dedicated installation of an Intranet software application and can offer the customer much greater flexibility (customizable, extensible) than web-based shared solutions.

The trade-off may be in sheer simplicity of user interaction but, in my experience, this is really not a negative because the SaaS solution will typically offer greater depth of functionality (significantly so in some cases). SaaS has the added advantage that it can be moved onto company servers if there is a future decision to move the software and take over maintenance.