What's so different about the World Wide Web anyway?

Many predict a shift in the way organizations function as the World Wide Web becomes the predominant way that people gain access to computer applications and information. As organizations graft Web interfaces to their legacy systems and conceive of entire new information systems that take advantage of the Web infrastructure, a new field called Web Information Systems (WIS) is emerging. There is a clear difference between a set of Web pages and a WIS. The WIS supports work, and is usually tightly integrated with other non-Web-based information systems such as a databases and transaction processing systems.