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ComputerWorld
Q&A: IBM's Rod Smith touts coming 'mashups'
Heather Havenstein
June 15, 2006 (Computerworld) IBM today is announcing a new framework next Wednesday that uses Web services and wiki technology to allow companies to build "mashups." Mashups are applications that combine content from more than one source into Web-based user applications using technologies like Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), PHP scripting language and syndicated feeds. IBM's Enterprise Mashup blends external information such as news feeds, weather reports, maps and traffic conditions with enterprise content and services to quickly create new enterprise applications, according to Rod Smith, IBM's vice president of emerging Internet technologies.
Smith recently spoke with Computerworld about the new initiative. Excerpts from that interview follow:
What are the business drivers behind IBM's Enterprise Mashup? As the Internet keeps evolving, we keep hear how customers want to leverage it to build these informational applications. They are very timely and topical. When a weather storm is coming up the coast, how will that affect your business? One customer said a major factor in their business is the weather -- so do they put plants out (to display for sales) or do they put generators out? It was probably the second most important variable in their business next to employees. They asked if we have a real-time weather service. We did a prototype for them based on their requirements that showed a set of stores that could use the Mashup. You could use a Google map to click on a store to see weather conditions and also show inventory. You need to be able to monitor things on a timely basis to make business decisions.
Folks say these things would be really helpful, but they don't have any way to build them now. Applications like that have been too costly to build from an IT perspective.
How does it work? It is like wiring the Web. It is more of an assembler. We started looking at Web-based data sources like weather, traffic and some that show building permits. With [the Mashup] inside a browser, you could see a palette of these Web components, and you just drag them on a wiki page. They automatically get the information and show it to you then and there. You've actually assembled it. It is not like a traditional application development.
What is the technology behind this? Web services. You wouldn't have this whole area of mashups if you didn't have [service-oriented architecture] as a backbone. Then there is Web 2.0 technology like AJAX and syndication feeds. Someone can point to an RSS feed, and we will get it and put it in a format where they can put in one their [Web] pages. Underneath, we use some PHP technology and open-source wiki technology. It is immediate satisfaction as opposed to normal application development.
When will IBM's Enterprise Mashup be available? As enterprise customers look at what is happening in the open-source world of mashup camps, they are describing these types of applications. Through their guidance, we will decide how we will incorporate this into future products.
ComputerWire
IBM Pushed Enterprise Mashups
June 16, 2006
By Tony Baer
In a keynote before the New York PHP Users Group, IBM Corp's resident emerging technology executive Rod Smith pushed a new idea for developers used to putting web pages together: why not graduate mashups from popularity in the consumer space to higher-end enterprise applications.
Smith, whose formal title is vice president of emerging Internet technologies, said that mashups are a suitable alternative to more complex, transactional or business process integrations or orchestrations when you are trying to quickly blend content for business requirements likely to have a brief shelf life. Smith emphasized the content aspect.
According to Smith, IBM has been experimenting with Web 2.0 style development, mixing assets such as Wikis, Google Maps, or Flickr, for the past nine months. "As we talked to customers, we found that there was a category of content-oriented applications bridging internal and external information that they would love to see built," noted Smith.
During his talk, Smith demonstrated a movie production dashboard based on the IBM's Enterprise Mashup technology that was derived from a pilot project with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).
The live demo showed a film producer linking the entire post-production crew with a single application that tracked work progress and resources used, while providing the ability to allocate staff and budget going forward.
In another pilot, IBM recently put together an app for a large national home improvement retail chain to help factor weather reports with inventory management. For instance, if a Category 3 or higher hurricane is predicted, it makes sense to transfer inventories of plywood to stores in areas likely to be in the storm's path.
Consequently, although a hurricane warning issued by the National Weather Service would not automatically trigger an inventory transfer through the SAP system, a regional manager with web access to the SAP inventory data could have display level integration populated by a severe weather advisory RSS feed.
The attraction of Web 2.0 mashups is that, like Ajax technology in general, they typically use scripting tools and utilities that web developers probably already have.
And unlike more formalized corporate apps, they shouldn't take as much time to develop and may not require the same levels of skillsets. In many cases, a capable web developer could assemble a mashup in minutes.
And furthermore, the apps by nature are not intrusive because integration is literally only skin deep: URLs and other web objects are inserted on the web page rather than requiring interactions back in the middleware tier.
"Using Ajax as the visual representation, I don't have much logic there," said Smith. "So the separation [between logic, data, and presentation] stays pretty intact."
Of course, the prime drawback of Ajax is that for now there aren't any standard programming models. That's why the OpenAjax organization was recently formed.
Compounding the challenge, while Ajax scripting languages like JavaScript or PHP might be object-based, they are not as robust as Java EE or .NET frameworks. Consequently, unlike Java EE or .NET, they don't fully enforce rules regarding the lifecycle of objects or components.
And reflecting the immaturity of the market, Smith counts over 70 scripting tools that have varying degrees of functionality.
The way Smith describes enterprise mashups, they would seem to be quick, tactical applications that should be pretty disposable once the immediate need for them has passed.
If you're a software veteran who recalls those 30-year old non-Y2K compliant legacy apps that lasted longer than expected, you might be tempted to "just say no." But if you're a web developer and there's a critical business problem that needs to be solved quickly, your attitude is more likely to be, "just do it."
The Globe and Mail
Businesses should welcome Web tools
June 15, 2006
Mathew Ingram
There are still plenty of opinions on what to call it -- some like the term "Web 2.0," while others prefer "social Web" or "live Web" -- but there is little doubt that the Internet is becoming a lot more interactive than it used to be.
A website used to be called interactive if it had an e-mail link or a form for visitors to fill out. Now, sites are offering users a far greater degree of control than was previously possible. The photo-hosting site Flickr, for example, lets users upload pictures, but also lets them "tag" and share them, in effect creating virtual communities.
A growing number of Web 2.0 services, such as Writely and ThinkFree Office, allow users to share and edit documents -- including Microsoft documents -- on-line. Google (which also owns Writely) recently launched a service that lets users share and edit spreadsheets without leaving a Web page or having to download an application.
All of these features have made life interesting for Web surfers, but what about businesses? While there are risks that companies need to be aware of, they would be better off finding ways of using these new technologies rather than trying to block them. Those that do are likely to find that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.
Many companies are still trying to get their heads around the idea of having a blog written by an employee, let alone starting up a "wiki" or allowing their staff to collaborate on Word or Excel documents through a service like Google's. But the same freedom -- and low cost -- that makes Web 2.0 appealing to consumers makes it a natural for many businesses too.
Harvard University professor and management expert Andrew McAfee has urged companies to embrace these new Web technologies. In an article he wrote for the most recent issue of the MIT-Sloan Management Review magazine, he argued that Web-based tools can help companies be more responsive, and in turn more competitive.
At the moment, companies tend to use packages such as IBM's Lotus Notes, Microsoft's LiveMeeting, or similar meeting software from Cisco Systems. Most of these solutions are expensive and complex to install, and have to be managed by a company's in-house IT department, the same way corporate phone services are.
Just as voice-over-Internet services are cutting into the market share of the phone companies, some Web-based services are offering features that threaten to do the same for meetings and collaboration. They may lack some of the features of enterprise-based tools, but they are cheap and most are relatively easy to use.
WebEx, which the company's website says is used by over 12,000 businesses, is the current leader in Web-based meetings and collaboration. Designed for corporate use, it offers on-line meetings and a virtual-desktop sharing service for up to 10 people for $49 a month (U.S.), and requires users to download and install software.
GoToMeeting, from remote-access software firm Citrix, also requires a download and a similar fee. Both let participants in an on-line meeting view presentation slides and documents, or see a program running on a person's desktop, and discuss it either on a conference call or via an "instant messaging"-style chat.
Totally Web-based competitors are moving in on the action too, including a new service called Vyew. It requires no downloads to run, and setting up a meeting is as simple as going to a website, clicking a link to create a page and sending an e-mail to the other participants. The service (which is in "beta" mode) is currently free.
Users can upload and share PowerPoint slides or a snapshot of their desktop. They can also chat in real time while looking at a presentation, and launch a conference call with a single click (although regular long-distance charges apply for such calls).
A company called JotSpot offers "wikis" -- Web pages that can be edited without having to leave the page -- that allow workers to collaborate on projects. JotSpot is Web-based and free, although it also offers an enterprise version that can be run from behind a corporate firewall (JotSpot announced a partnership with eBay on Tuesday to offer a wiki on the auction site). IBM is also working on a wiki-like service called QEDWiki.
Web-based services aren't right for every business, for security reasons if nothing else. While most Web services use traditional Internet security standards, that might not be enough for sensitive information.
In many cases, however, Web 2.0 services are finding their way into companies whether managers want them to or not. Since Web-based tools look like regular Internet traffic, they are difficult to block. And as Prof. McAfee suggests, smart companies might want to find ways of working with them rather than against them.
SYS-CON/Open Source Magazine
IBM Exec Gets Web 2.0 Mash-Up Religion
 Rod Smith (pictured), IBM's vice president of emerging Internet technologies, declared that the technologies underpinning blogs, wikis and innovative sites like Google Maps and Wikipedia on the Web will transform the way productivity applications are developed -- in some cases in as little as five minutes -- using the ever-expanding palette of Web 2.0 components available for free on the Internet.
According to Smith, the rapid adoption of Web 2.0 technologies is encouraging clients to experiment by marrying the growing combinations of online Web services with existing data and information from inside their business, enabling the creation of new applications that bring the experience and utility of popular next-generation Internet applications to business users.
This approach has the potential, Smith says, to put in-house corporate developers in more control by inventing on-the-spot composite applications that solve immediate business challenges.
"The embrace of open standards and Web 2.0 technologies is forcing businesses to rethink the paradigm of the proprietary, one-size-fits-all productivity application," declared Smith. "In today's business climate, with business collaborations quickly forming and disbanding, customers are rethinking how they can enable innovation to occur.
"Customers I talk to are abuzz about Web 2.0 and the creation of popular Internet services that seem to quickly appear out of nowhere, becoming instant global phenomena that are enjoyed by the masses -- including their employees. They want to apply that new paradigm to make their businesses act faster and grab new opportunities. There's no going back."
As part of his keynote, Smith unveiled a new Mashup prototype based on Web 2.0 technologies that applies to industry and business situations. IBM's so-called "Enterprise Mashup" breaks down the barriers of traditional application development and provides a framework that uses Web services and wiki technology to allow people to create a customized application in less than five minutes.
"The Web 2.0 powered IBM Enterprise Mashup puts more capability into an individuals hands and gives them more freedom to innovate -- and because Web 2.0 technologies are based on open standards, integrating them into an open business model is easy for end users and developers alike," said Smith.
IBM's Enterprise Mashup blends external information and web services (e.g., news feeds, weather reports, maps, traffic conditions and more) with enterprise content and services, instantly "mashing" them together to create a fast, flexible and affordable application for specific business needs. Mashup, derived from the hip-hop practice of mixing song samples, are a website or applications that combine content from more than one source into an integrated user application using open technologies like Ajax, PHP and syndicated feeds (RSS or ATOM).
"We are seeing growing interest by businesses for Enterprise Mashups, which are driving a whole new breed of 'instant applications' by people needing specific and tailored information," Smith said. "This is about how you empower more people to link applications and information together, helping solve problems in real time. Web 2.0 pioneers are demonstrating the potential of Mashups through their innovative thinking. During the next two years, all middleware vendors will have mash up makers in their product portfolio -- why let all the Web 2.0 folks have all the fun. Enterprise Mashup takes the guesswork out of creating tailored, short-term applications that help solve immediate business challenges in a cost-effective way."
Smith showed a movie production dashboard based on the IBM Enterprise Mashup technology. In the live demo, a movie producer can link the entire post-production film crew: sound, digital film, special effects and editors into one application where they can track work progress and resources used, allocate assignments to staff, manage budgets and update content. Smith's Mashup demonstration was derived from IBM's recent collaboration with members of the National Association of Broadcasters (www.nab.org) where production teams collaborate around project specific content in real-time using technologies like Ajax, Atom and instant messaging. Typically, such information collaboration solutions have not been previously possible for digital media professionals due to the cost and time to combine this specific information.
eChannel News
IBM exec says technology underpinning blogs will drive new business apps
June 15, 2006
In a keynote speech to leading technology executives, Rod Smith, IBM's vice president of emerging Internet technologies, declared that the technologies underpinning blogs, wikis and innovative sites like Google Maps, Flickr and Wikipedia on the Web will transform the way software applications are developed -- in some cases in as little as five minutes -- using the ever-expanding palate of Web 2.0 components available for free on the Internet.
According to Smith, the rapid adoption of Web 2.0 technologies is encouraging business customers to experiment by marrying the growing combinations of Web services with existing data and information from inside their business. This can allow for the creation of new applications that bring the experience and utility of popular next-generation Internet applications to business users.
This approach has the potential, Smith argues, to put in-house corporate developers in more control by inventing on-the-spot composite applications that solve immediate business challenges, instead of waiting -- sometimes years -- for the next major release of a company's "one size fits all" business application suite to solve the problem.
"The embrace of open standards and Web 2.0 technologies is forcing businesses to rethink the paradigm of the proprietary, one-size-fits-all business software application," declared Smith. "In today's business climate, with businesses collaborations quickly forming and disbanding, customers can't afford to wait years for the next release of their application software, hoping it will solve their problems. Their business software is overloaded with too many features that employees don't use, and it can't easily connect with their established business processes."
As part of his keynote, Smith unveiled a new mashup prototype based on Web 2.0 technologies that applies to industry and business situations. IBM's so-called "Enterprise Mashup" breaks down the barriers of traditional application development and provides a framework that uses web services and wiki technology to allow people to create a customized application in less than five minutes.
"We are seeing growing interest by businesses for enterprise mashups, which are driving a whole new breed of instant applications' by people needing specific and tailored information," Smith said. "This is about how you empower more people around linking applications and information together, helping solve problems in real time. Web 2.0 pioneers are demonstrating the potential of mash-ups through their innovative thinking. Over the next two years, all middleware vendors will have mash up makers in their product portfolio - why let all the web 2.0 folks have all the fun. Enterprise Mashup takes the guesswork out of creating tailored, short-term applications that help solve immediate business challenges in a cost-effective way."
TechWeb/IT Australia
IBM's enterprise mashup uses web services for new apps
June 16, 2006
By Staff writers, TechWeb
The technologies underpinning blogs, wikis and innovative sites like Google Maps and Wikipedia will transform the way productivity applications are developed, according to Rod Smith, IBM vice president of emerging internet technologies.
It has the potential to put in-house corporate developers in more control by inventing on-the-spot applications - in some cases in just five minutes - to solve immediate business challenges, Smith said in a speech to technology executives at the PHP conference in New York City on Thursday.
IBM's new Enterprise Mashup uses web services such as news feeds, weather reports, maps, traffic conditions and wiki technology to allow people to create a customised business applications in less than five minutes.
Rapid adoption of Web 2.0 components available free on the internet is allowing clients to experiment by marrying combinations of online services with existing data and information from inside their businesses.
"The embrace of open standards and Web 2.0 technologies is forcing businesses to rethink the paradigm of the proprietary, one-size-fits-all productivity application," Smith said. "Customers I talk to are abuzz about Web 2.0 and the creation of popular internet services that seem to quickly appear out of nowhere, becoming instant global phenomena that are enjoyed by the masses - including their employees. They want to apply that new paradigm to make their businesses act faster and grab new opportunities. There's no going back."
Smith said all middleware vendors will have mashup makers in their product portfolio within a few years, and he credited social networking sites for creating mashups.
IBM demonstrated its Enterprise Mashup technology, using resources like Ajax and instant messaging, with the National Association of Broadcasters. They linked sound crews, digital film crews, special effects experts and editors into one application for tracking progress, aligning staff, managing budgets and updating content.
Big Blue is developing mashups for a home improvement store that allows a logistic manager to drag and drop weather reports, maps and hardware inventory data into a mashup that shows which stores will need rock salt, shovels and snow blowers.
The Enterprise Mashup can also allow a stockbroker to drop a list of client names into the wiki-based Mashup maker and get a view of their interest areas with links to topical blogs, wikis and relevant news feeds. The dashboard shows which client interests overlap with other contacts in your address book, which allows expansion of professional networks and other insights.
IBM will make Enterprise Mashups available through its business representatives for selected customer and through its AlphaWorks Services website.
IT News/IT India
Web 2.0 to Drive Business Apps Says IBM, Unveils Enterprise Mashup
June 16, 2006
IT News Online Staff
Rod Smith, IBM's vice president of emerging Internet technologies, in his keynote speech at the NY PHP Conference, said that the technologies underpinning blogs, wikis and innovative sites like Google Maps and Wikipedia on the Web will transform the way productivity applications are developed, in some cases in as little as five minutes, using the ever-expanding palette of Web 2.0 components available for free on the Internet.
According to Smith, the rapid adoption of Web 2.0 technologies is encouraging clients to experiment by marrying the growing combinations of online Web services with existing data and information from inside their business, enabling the creation of new applications that bring the experience and utility of popular next-generation Internet applications to business users.
This approach has the potential, said Smith, to put in-house corporate developers in more control by inventing on-the-spot composite applications that solve immediate business challenges.
"The embrace of open standards and Web 2.0 technologies is forcing businesses to rethink the paradigm of the proprietary, one-size-fits-all productivity application," declared Smith. "In today's business climate, with business collaborations quickly forming and disbanding, customers are rethinking how they can enable innovation to occur.
"Customers I talk to are abuzz about Web 2.0 and the creation of popular Internet services that seem to quickly appear out of nowhere, becoming instant global phenomena that are enjoyed by the masses, including their employees. They want to apply that new paradigm to make their businesses act faster and grab new opportunities. There's no going back."
As part of his keynote, Smith unveiled a new Mashup prototype based on Web 2.0 technologies that applies to industry and business situations. IBM's so-called "Enterprise Mashup" breaks down the barriers of traditional application development and provides a framework that uses Web services and wiki technology to allow people to create a customized application in less than five minutes.
"The Web 2.0 powered IBM Enterprise Mashup puts more capability into an individuals hands and gives them more freedom to innovate and because Web 2.0 technologies are based on open standards, integrating them into an open business model is easy for end users and developers alike," said Smith.
IBM's Enterprise Mashup blends external information and Web services (e.g., news feeds, weather reports, maps, traffic conditions and more) with enterprise content and services, instantly "mashing" them together to create a fast, flexible and affordable application for specific business needs. Mashup, derived from the hip-hop practice of mixing song samples, are a website or applications that combine content from more than one source into an integrated user application using open technologies like Ajax, PHP and syndicated feeds (RSS or ATOM).
"We are seeing growing interest by businesses for Enterprise Mashups, which are driving a whole new breed of 'instant applications' by people needing specific and tailored information," said Smith. "This is about how you empower more people to link applications and information together, helping solve problems in real time. Web 2.0 pioneers are demonstrating the potential of Mashups through their innovative thinking. During the next two years, all middleware vendors will have mash up makers in their product portfolio, why let all the Web 2.0 folks have all the fun. Enterprise Mashup takes the guesswork out of creating tailored, short-term applications that help solve immediate business challenges in a cost-effective way."
Smith showed a movie production dashboard based on the IBM Enterprise Mashup technology. In the live demo, a movie producer can link the entire post-production film crew: sound, digital film, special effects and editors into one application where they can track work progress and resources used, allocate assignments to staff, manage budgets and update content. Smith's Mashup demonstration was derived from IBM's recent collaboration with members of the National Association of Broadcasters where production teams collaborate around project specific content in real-time using technologies like Ajax, Atom and instant messaging. Typically, such information collaboration solutions have not been previously possible for digital media professionals due to the cost and time to combine this specific information.
In addition to the media and entertainment Enterprise Mashup example, Smith also discussed other Mashups IBM has been developing, including one for a home improvement store. This Mashup helps a logistics manager to plan the most efficient way to send rock salt, shovels and snow blowers to the Northeast to stock the store in time for a forecasted record snowstorm. By using the Enterprise Mashup, the manager can "drag and drop" weather reports from the National Weather advisory, maps from Google Maps and the company's national hardware inventory data into a mashed up application that will show which stores will be hit with the storm, which stores need inventory, enabling the manager prioritize deliveries.
In financial services, the Enterprise Mashup can provide a unique Web "radar" that enable users to create a dashboard based on the interests of friends, relatives or coworkers from their computer's address book. For example, a stockbroker can drop a list of client names into the wiki-based Mashup maker and get dashboard view of their interest areas with links to topical blogs, wikis and relevant news feeds from all over the Web. The dashboard shows which client interests overlap with other contacts in your address book. With this view, you can easily get up to speed on areas most relevant to your client's portfolios, read current news stories and find new resources on investment tips you can share. The view also shows how your contacts relate to one another in areas of interests (or investing), so you, or your clients, can make new business connections and expand your corporate network.
Smith credited early pioneers for their innovations in social networking technologies for driving this new capability, and suggested, "there is pent up demand for a new category of applications that until now have been unaffordable for businesses to build. We feel the Enterprise Mashup project begins to address this demand and will help evolve the way business collaboration is conducted in the future."
Currently IBM is making Enterprise Mashups available for selected customers who want to evaluate the technology in real business situations. Interested participants should contact their IBM representative. IBM plans to make the technology available on their AlphaWorks Services Web site to allow users to test drive the technology for broader evaluation.
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