EXTRANET NEWS * Week of 5 August 2002

Editors: Joel Orr, N'omi Orr, Stephen Orr

http://www.extranetnews.com

1. GREY ZONE: DIY EXTRANETS WITH TEETH

2. THE LIST

3. TIDBITS

4. QUOTE OF THE WEEK

1. GREY ZONE: DIY EXTRANETS WITH TEETH

Joel Orr

The skinny: Grey Zone's SecureZone 5 is a do-it-yourself extranet (or intranet, or public site) -creation and -management package. It requires NO technical knowledge, no html, no PERL--no geekstuff.

It enables an intelligent non-geek user to design and create a world-class extranet with desktop content creation, backed up by enterprise-level security and scalability, in a very, very short time. Very short.

A bit more: SecureZone 5 is designed for the leading flavors of Linux and Unix. In fact, its preferred implementation is on top of a LAMP setup--Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP--on an Intel machine. (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP are all free open-source products.) However, it also works on Sun, IBM, and other systems--even on NT.

All aspects of the Web site are managed through the use of simple, easy-to-understand forms. The system's fine-grained access control--of which the firm is justly proud--is behind the complete personalization of the user experience. Everything is keyed to the log-in; a user only sees things for which that log-in is authorized. Content, data maps, forms--the user is invisibly constrained to authorized areas.

Content can be created and posted direct from their desktop by anyone who has the right permissions.

There are a plethora of reporting options, with the ability to track interactions down to individual pages.

Can it be THAT easy? "I can't program my cell phone, but I can build extranets with your product," said a site manager at Visa International, according to Grey Zone CEO Ken Toren.

I asked Toren if Grey Zone competes with drag-and-drop portal builders, like Plumtree. "No, we don't. The strength of portals is their ability to interface to disparate applications and deal with structured data; our strength is in dealing with unstructured data."

"Lockheed is implementing a system for the Pentagon, and it is based on OraclePortal. They are using SecureZone 5 to provide the extranet functionality," he said.

"If you have a portal, we integrate with you," Toren added. "If you have a content-management system, we provide extranet power."

The company sells software, charging for number of extranets deployed, rather than for number of users. Typical installations cost $50,000-$250,000. "70% of our users are repeat buyers," says Toren.

How is it sold? Currently, direct. "But we think the product is perfectly suited to indirect sales through hardware vendors and resellers. We now market through Mainline (a large IBM reseller), and are seeking other channel relationships."

Grey Zone was founded in 1997, and has 23 employees. Toren joined three months ago; he says the company will be profitable this year. "Lots of firms have had their IT departments and budgets slashed--but their workload hasn't been reduced. We can help, regardless of industry. We've had wins in financial services, high tech, aerospace, retail--we are not very vertical."

Goals? "We are the Southwest Airlines of extranets--quick, easy, cost-effective, reliable. We plan to lead in solid enterprise-level extranet solutions."

Our take: Not having to have a technical staff to deploy and manage an extranet is worth a lot of money. The ease of use is very impressive.

2. THE LIST

Total companies: 250 (see who's on The List at http://www.extranetnews.com)

We've discovered several new blogging software companies, some with content management capabilities. We'll list them as soon as we check them out.

GONE:

* Novo/GiantStep;

* Projectmind;

* Tecoplan;

* VirtualJV.

ADDED:

* Eastgate Systems' Tinderbox--unusual KM and Web publishing (only for OS X).

CHANGED:

* Bidaec is now AEC Reprographics;

* Buildingwork is now part of Causeway;

* e|architect is now Punch WebGroups;

* NetClerk is now PermitWorks;

* Planet Intra is now Inclusion Technologies

3. TIDBITS

* The "ZweigWhite AEC Intranet Cookbook" is exactly that. Its $145 price can easily be justified by the fact that it will save you hours, at a minimum--more probably, days--in the evaluation, selection, and implementation of an intranet. Check out a detailed description of the book and its contents at http://www.zweigwhite.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/bookstore/3igint.html?E+aa0019820

* Interested in blogs and blogging? John Hiler has compiled a wonderful annotated survey of available software. Read it at http://www.microcontentnews.com/articles/blogware.htm

* A good feature comparison table of blogging tools can be found at http://www.urldir.com/bt/

* MPS User Conference 2002: Connecting with Customers will be held September 18-20, in Sacramento, California. http://www.mps.com/news/NewsCoverage/PressReleases/062002.asp

* Missed the Bentley International User Conference? Come to Virtual BIUC, http://www.virtualbiuc.com.

* Personalize CADwire as a newsletter! CADwire has up-to-the-minute nuggets of well-organized news, press releases, and commentary from Joel and his associates in Cyon Research Corporation. http://www.cadwire.net is the place to go to find out what is going on in the world of engineering and architecture automation. And now you can have it customized to your taste, and emailed direct to you!

* Important warning in verse:

"It's," with apostrophe,

is short for "it is";

"Its" means, "belonging to it."

Though often misused,

these words are precise;

Confuse them,

and you'll sound like...

...an ignoramus.

4. QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to
the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a
goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just

stupid."

- J. D. Watson, "The Double Helix" (One of the discoverers of DNA)