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Convinced by these advantages, aerospace, investment banking,
telecommunication, entertainment, manufacturing, computer software and
hardware companies to name a few have already implemented internal web
applications and report significant cost savings and improvements in
staff productivity. Although the range of applications that can be
developed to meet industry-specific or general needs is virtually
limitless, web applications generally fit in to one of three categories:
- Publishing applications are essentially one-to-many
communications: teams, departments, or entire corporations can set up
pages where they post information, reducing bulky, easily outdated
paper-based information. Applications like this bring an immediate
payback to organizations, reducing the costs of producing, printing,
shipping, and updating corporate information.
- Transaction applications are two-way interactions, such as
downloading software or checking benefits information. Whether an
employee needs a report, a software download, or a personalized letter,
using web technology, linked to legacy data, can be an intuitive and
efficient alternative to the delays and frustrations of telephone tag
or paper pushing.
- Community applications are many-to-many interactions. They include
newsgroups that facilitate direct exchanges of information between
members of a group, making information available to others within the
group. Newsgroups aren't email aliases. They resemble a tabloid that
readers scan, drilling down to more data if they wish. People subscribe
to the newsgroups that interest them, and what they see on screen is a
full list of subject lines, authors, and news article numbers. Each of
these items is the beginning of a ``thread'', which starts when someone
sends out an article or e-mail.
These types of web applications can improve communications and
productivity across all areas of a company, although they may take very
different forms depending on whether they're designed to meet the needs
of specific departments or corporate-wide functions. Company
departments like sales and marketing, product developments and others
currently are deploying web applications to solve their communications
problems in the following ways.
Next: 8.4.1 Sales and Marketing
Up: 8 Appendix 8: Putting
Previous: 8.3 Internal Use of
Denis Arnaud
12/19/1997