Intranet Solutions

The age of global communication has arrived. The Internet offers companies an opportunity to build brand name awareness on the World Wide Web and to explore new electronic mediums for doing business.

The explosion of the Internet creates a new arena for companies to utilize new
technology by sharing and gaining information through an internal network. These intranets allow networking executives to accommodate new applications such as the distribution of Human Resources Information, while controlling printing costs from changes to the documents or addition of employees. Many companies are moving applications off the corporate shelf and onto virtual private networks using cost effective public technologies.

Comtech Solutions is a leading provider of an Internet/Intranet system. Our complete solutions combine the latest technology of hardware and software ranging from server selection, firewall security and connectivity needed to link to the Internet.

How can an Intranet work for your company? The following list gives just a few examples:

Company-wide announcements
Events
Current stock price
Employee benefits/ on-line forms
Online training
Inter-department and inter-division product development communications
Software distribution
Product support documentation
Employee newsletters
Conference room scheduling
On-line price books for the direct sales force and resellers
Latest internal product information and promotions

If you are looking to build an entire Intranet from scratch, or simply add a new component to an existing system, Comtech can help you bring your employees closer to the information they need.

Within the early Intranet adopters, the application of this hot technology is being typically used as follows:-

Publishing corporate documents: This documents include newsletters, Annual Reports, Sales Report, maps, company facilities, price lists, product information literature, and any document which is of value within the corporate entity. This is one area where significant cost control can be achieved as well as much more efficient, timely and accurate communication across the entire corporate organization.

Access into searchable directories: Rapid access to corporate phone books and the like. This data can be mirrored at a Web site or, via CGI scripts, the Web server can serve as a gateway to back-end pre-existing or new applications. This means that, using the same standard access mechanisms, information can be made more widely available and in a simpler manner.

Corporate/Department/Individual pages: As cultures change within organizations to the point where even each department moves towards their own individual mission statements, the Internet technology provides the ideal medium to communicate current information to the Department or Individual. Powerful search engines provide the means for people to find the group or individual who has the answers to the continuous questions which arise in the normal day-to-day course of doing business. e.g. Employee handbook, Job Listings, etc.

Simple Groupware applications: With HTML forms support, sites can provide sign-up sheets, surveys and simple scheduling. As the Intranet technologies continue to evolve, the press have been positioning the technologies as alternatives to major groupware applications (e.g. Microsoft Outlook) to such a point that this type of rhetoric only serves to cause confusion as to the appropriateness of each area of technology. As always, it is not black and white. The Intranet technology can be used to complement or as an alternative to such groupware products. It all becomes a matter of scale, cost, timescale, openness and taste.

Software distribution: Internal Administrators can use the Intranet to deliver software and up-dates 'on-demand' to users across the corporate network. This will continue to gain momentum as new technologies such as ActiveX become more widely available from Microsoft, which will allow the creation and transparent distribution of objects on-demand rather than just data or applications.

Mail: Although email has been seen as being a 'killer application', its uses have tended to be limited and over-complicated. With the move to the use of Intranet mail products with standard and simple methods for attachment of documents, sound, vision and other multimedia between individuals, mail is about to be pushed further forward as a simple, de facto communications method. Mail is essentially individual to individual, or individual to small group, communication. With the emergence of Web technology, there are now better and more appropriate tools for one-to-many communication which historically is where mail systems have been over-burdened and over-burdening to the point of reducing their effectiveness.

User Interface: The Intranet technology is evolving so rapidly that the tools available, in particular HTML, can be used to dramatically change the way we interface with systems. With HTML you can build an 'End User Comfortable Interface' which is only limited by the creator's imagination. The beauty about using Intranet technologies for this is that it is so simple. Hitting a hyperlink from HTML does not necessarily take you to another page - it could ring an alarm, run a year end procedure or anything that a computer action can do. Now, with the Intranet tools, you can paint reality in HTML and make an in-context and uniform front-end to all computer-based resources.

Comtech Solutions is a one-stop shop for all your Intranet and Internet requirements. Our extensive knowledge of the Intranet and Internet technology coupled with significant knowledge and experience in systems design, systems administration, and networking, provides us with a unique advantage over our competitors. We can successfully implement corporate Intranets on time and most importantly within budget. We will take responsibility for all your Intranet and Internet needs.

The key areas of Intranet development and implementation we specialize in are -

Requirement analysis: Working closely with nominated members of your staff we will attempt to gain some insight into your company business processes and procedures. This will allow us to design your Intranet, in a way that will fit your company culture and your preferred way of conducting business.; We will open your minds to the endless possibilities that Intranet and Internet has to offer.

Design: We will design a structure of your Intranet. During this stage you will be presented with a working prototype of your Intranet. Following your acceptance we will then proceed with the full development.; By now we will have sufficient knowledge of your requirements to present you with a Blue-print of your Intranet.

Development: We will develop your Intranet at our premises. When access to legacy data is concerned, some development will have to be performed at your company premises.; Now you will have a fully developed Intranet that is ready for installation.

Implementation: We will install the required hardware and software. We would like to involve some members of your IT department. This will give them an opportunity to gain some insight into, and working knowledge of, your new Intranet. Web browsers of your choice will be installed on your employees?personal computers/workstations. Every single component of your new Intranet, both hardware and software, will be fully tested.; At this point of time we will require you to spend some more time with us in order to conduct acceptance testing.

Document conversion: Some of your existing documents may need to be converted to a format suitable for use on your new Intranet. Where the number of the documents is large, we can convert these documents for you. Should you wish to perform this task yourself, we can offer some guidance, training and support.

Training: Now that your Intranet is fully operational we will give an extensive training to selected staff members. Training sessions will concentrate on practical aspects of day to day maintenance of Intranet.; We prefer to train key people in your IT department. This allows you to retain the knowledge in-house, and conduct your own training sessions to a wider audience at your convenience.

Maintenance: We can provide ongoing administration and maintenance of your new Intranet. Usually this task involves document updates, maintenance of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programs, creating new users etc. Alternatively we will train selected people from your IT department to perform these tasks.

Our Intranet Tools: