---
title: "Google Instant Intranet"
date: 2006-09-06
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2006"
    url: "/tag/2006.md"
---

# Google Instant Intranet

Google has an upcoming Personalized Start Page for Enterprise, according to some sleuthing done by [Garrett Rogers](https://web.archive.org/web/20110830141928/http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=315) and Scott Smith at [Google Blogoscoped](https://web.archive.org/web/20110830141928/http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-09-03.html#n22). Here’s an example [Dell start page](https://web.archive.org/web/20110830141928/http://www.google.com/ig/dell) and the official [help page](https://web.archive.org/web/20110830141928/https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=45471&ctx=sibling).

The Personalized Start Page will be one of the options available in the beta [Apps For Your Domain](https://web.archive.org/web/20110830141928/https://www.google.com/a/) service. Currently email, IM, calendar and website creator is included in the package. In the Google Blogoscoped [forum](https://web.archive.org/web/20110830141928/http://blog.outer-court.com/forum/66134.html), there’s further speculation about Writely integration and the ability to [add Adsense](https://web.archive.org/web/20110830141928/https://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=45474&topic=9203) to it.

I think Google sees Personalized Start Page for Enterprise as a kind of ‘instant Intranet’ option for small-medium businesses. While the example above is from Dell, it’s unlikely a big corporation would ditch their (often hugely expensive) custom-made Intranet. It could also be used as a customer-facing website, which the Dell example seems to be. But I don’t think that’s all that appealing from a branding point of view.

You’ll note that the Dell page includes some special Dell gadgets (see image below). This is where it starts to get interesting, as we morph into a world of componentized web apps. That kind of functionality would be very useful on a company Intranet.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_instant_intranet.php))*