Introduction

For most organizations, the Internet represents the future of their business. However, the trend is not limited to e-commerce where businesses sell products to customers over the Internet. Businesses can more fully utilize their technology potential by easily extending services to remote offices and a field sales force through an intranet, and between vendor and client businesses (Business-to-Business). Sharing applications is an effective way of reducing internal IT costs and an exciting way of adding value to Business-to-Business (B2B) relationships. Client-server technology delivered over the Internet can be the quickest way to enhance business value.

Internally, a company can reduce licensing and maintenance costs by standardizing common applications and providing upgrades over an internal network. In B2B relationships, this reduces the need for each enterprise to purchase software applications so that they can exchange compatible files for stocking, shipping, and accounting information, or to use cumbersome processes to convert this information between applications. Additionally, the ability to deliver applications over the Internet eliminates the need to invest in hardware and software to provide for dial-up networking to remote offices and between companies exchanging data.

Citrix MetaFrame is a solution that provides all these advantages and gives the opportunity to further reduce maintenance, telecommunications, upgrade, and system administration costs. It also has a flexible interface that gives the enterprise the ability to adapt application delivery to suit users who have different comfort levels with technology. Applications can be presented so that it appears to the user that they are running...