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Last year saw a 21 per cent growth of collaborative intranets among Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF) members and half of those are achieving it through Microsoft’s SharePoint Server rather than straight Web 2.0 tools.

In 2007, 57 per cent of members had gone down the collaborative route compared to 36 per cent the year before, but the IBF found the take-up of Web 2.0 among members to be modest.

Paul Miller, Chairman and CEO of IBF, commented: ‘If you are interested in intranets that deliver extensive collaboration, personalisation and Web 2.0 functionality, then look at the BBC, Nokia, Schroders and Shell. But keep in mind that intranets that have not gone down these routes can be just as effective, if not more so.’ He cited the Alliance & Leicester intranet, which last year won an IBF award for content, without having Web 2.0 functionality.

Nevertheless, collaboration and community in some form will continue to be a trend, as well as the inclusion of high-level processes and the enabling of remote accessibility. Another trend is for ‘under webs’ – informal intranets that operate in tandem with official websites.

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