From the Editor

Mark Gibbs, our monthly columnist, often starts his pieces with a pithy quote he manages to tie into his topic of the moment. It's in this linguistic spirit that I've decided to preempt his back-of-the-book pearls of wisdom by using his opening here.

Gibbs launches his column with these words: "Business, like life, is an evolutionary process that through randomness and diversity finds direction." The statement is apropos to what is going on with this very publication.

In early 1996, the evolutionary forces bearing down on the networking world were pushing companies to become more adept at gathering and distributing information. Many companies recognized early on that newly minted Web technology could be used to accomplish those purposes, but IT shops needed help understanding the relevant technology, management and industry issues that were cropping up.

And so Network World launched Intranet in June 1996 as a monthly guide for network managers building corporate Webs. We 've covered a lot of ground in the past two and a half years, tracking the rapid progression of intranets from grass-roots undertakings to highly strategic corporate initiatives.

Now it's hard to figure out where an intranet stops and the rest of the network starts. Intranets have simply become a way of life.

And so we 've decided it 's time to evolve. Market conditions no longer call for a stand-alone monthly publication. Rather, they demand more weekly intranet coverage in Network World proper.

Network World 's intranet reporting team will delve into the issues related to building and maintaining intranets and extranets. Robin Hohman (rhohman@nww.com) covers intranet products and Web technologies; Ellen Messmer (emessmer@nww.com) reports on corporate use of intranets and electronic commerce; John Cox (jcox@nww.com) follows emerging Web technologies; Chris Nerney (cnerney@nww.com) writes about Java, agent software and search engines; and of course, other staffers report on IP and convergence issues.

As Gibbs says, "Evolution is hard at work here."