Test Your Web App on Teens

Inter, Intra, or Extra?

The Internet is really one big network, participants agreed in another session. This may seem obvious, but panelists were trying to dispel the notion that intranets (internal Web-based company networks) or extranets (a company's network extension for customers) are separate from the Internet.

"They're all part of one big TC/PIP network," says Jim Greene, chief executive officer of Active Software. "The only difference is where you place the firewall." Active provides network-based integration software for large companies that incorporate disparate information resources.

"I agree; there is really only one network, the Internet," says Gordon Eubanks, the former chief executive officer of Symantec who now heads up Oblix, which provides directory-based intranet applications. Connecting users of different applications remains complex despite the promise of technologies like XML, Eubanks notes.

"There are not only different applications, but umpteen versions of the same application," Eubanks says. "Being able to synchronize data is what's really important. To say XML is going to let you hook Peoplesoft to SAP is really naive."