November 9th, 2009
Enterprise mashup, defined
Kudos to JackBe’s
You may recall that last spring, following a TV news interview, Luis was not happy with the explanation he gave to describe enterprise mashups. JackBe sponsored a couple of contests, along with a lot of discussion among practitioners and analysts.
Here, at last, is the working definition Luis and his team have arrived at:
“Enterprise Mashups are secure, visually rich Web applications that expose actionable information from diverse internal and external information sources.”
Wait — that’s not all. The JackBe crew also sought to answer the question of “why” people need enterprise mashups. They didn’t want enterprise mashups to be solutions in search of problems, as has been the case with many a technology initiative:
“Poor decisions are often made because decision-makers do not have the right information at the right time. Enterprise mashups deliver new insights and enable better decisions through personalized access to the right, real-time information for the specific problem at hand.”
And finally, the JackBe crew also addressed the “how” aspect — as in how enterprise mashups can be created:
“An enterprise mashup platform is a technology suite that enables the rapid, collaborative, user-driven creation of Enterprise mashups without the complexities, costs and risks of traditional information integration projects.”
In this last passage, the user-created aspect of enterprise mashups are included in the definition. This is where mashups can potentially deliver business benefits, as more flexibility can be put into users’ hands. And, as the “why” part of this definition shows, enterprise mashups put decision makers in touch with performance data from across the organization. The greatest challenge to delivery of information at this time is the time it takes to prepare and deliver reports. Let’s give end-users the tools to quickly and configure their interfaces to back-end enterprise applications and data.
Joe McKendrick is an author and consultant with deep knowledge and insights regarding trends and developments in the technology industry. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 11/10/09
