Between emerging social networking tools and Web browser front ends, it is conceivable that the need for enterprise "intranets" is not so urgent anymore. As the Internet was seen as an external network, intranets were supposed to make internal data bases, information and communication available to enterprise associates.
But email, instant messaging, texting, mobile phones, Saleforce.com and other Web-based tools arguably not allow organizations to do those things without building dedicated intranets.
Instead, we've flipped everything inside out. The big movement now is towards software architectures that allow internal resources to be exposed to users with access to Web browsers.
