Last October, intellact was moved out of BT's UK Retail division and into the enterprisewide Business Services unit. According to BT Business Services CIO Tudor Rees, the switch in jurisdiction reflects an appreciation for intellact's role in the company's international portal. In part, it also made it easier to market intellact as a component of BT's knowledge management offerings, from which BT's line-of-business CIOs choose when planning their own slate of resources.
Until the switch, intellact users were essentially enjoying a free ride on the research and technology funds the UK Retail division spent on the system. The move to Business Services ended that scheme, and intellact now charges the BT groups it serves. So far the charges are being slowly phased in, but the ultimate goal is to get the users to com-pletely fund intellact's operations.
The call for cash has led to a counter call for more content selectivity. When intellact was operated gratis, nobody complained when Woolf's staff added another news feed. Now, however, division managers are starting to get sensitive about closing the gaps between what they pay for and what they use. Accommodating those selections seamlessly is still an open problem for intellact.
With a workable revenue model in place and a popular information destination behind it, why keep the money flowing strictly within the family? BT is giving some thought to sharing the fruits of its information-gathering labours with an inner circle of suppliers and customers - for a fee, of course. "Over time, we believe the service may have potential outside of BT," says Rees.
Rolling out intellact far beyond BT's staff will likely have to wait for an overhaul of the system, planned for later this year. Among the projects is a replacement of the Web layout and personalisation engine developed by BT Labs. The team also plans to expand the range of Internet-based sources, offer distinct page designs to different BT divisions and outsource the responsibility for managing and maintaining the server hardware. A multi-language interface and live translation of content are also possibilities.
While the upgrades will be welcome, users like Levy really love intellact for its instant access to information; in the end, that's enough to make the system worth its weight in copper (twisted pair wire, of course). "I like to work where I can almost give same-day service to queries," says Levy. With intellact "the information is there, and it's enough to enable us to make the right decisions".
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