Like sales and marketing departments, product development teams need up-to-date information to perform their jobs effectively. Product development applications often center on project management, with team members updating project schedules and sharing information about the progress of development or customer feedback. Of course, access to the sensitive information in these applications is restricted to team members through access controls. The types of information made accessible through intranet applications may include product specifications, designs, schedule milestones, and changes; team member listings and responsibilities; customer issues; and features of key competitive products. National Semiconductor Corporation developed an intranet largely to help its customers get their products to market faster. Tim Stuart, information services consultant for National Semiconductor, says, "When we develop a new product, we go through cycles of learning. The faster you can get a product out and look at it, the better you can make the next generation of product. If you can learn faster, you can end up ahead of the competition."

Multimedia entertainment company Electronic Arts uses newsgroups to enable teams to discuss projects and collaborate by means of a web. This way, Electronic Arts can quickly assemble virtual workgroups to tackle a project regardless of where employees are located. Employees can access the information they want, review the history of discussions, and come up to speed quickly if they're starting on a project already in progress. Web-based client-server applications enable Electronic Arts team members to request or submit specific information. Used in conjunction with a database, intranet applications allow team members to log and query product test results. These applications can also be used to submit a request to patent a recent development, and send the appropriate forms and information directly to the corporate legal department.

Collaborative applications facilitate the discussions and exchange of ideas that are such a critical part of product development - for example, focusing on specific issues and brainstorming new ideas while critiquing proposed approaches through customer feedback from sales, marketing, and customer service data enables product managers unique in-sites into the developmental process.

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