Software+Services gaining momentum!

Internally, we have played with Microsoft Office Business Applications for quite sometime now. But, its very exciting to see industry majors like FedEx experimenting with those ideas.
Fedex has recently launched an application called 'QuickShip' which lets you to execute critical functions like shipping&tracking without leaving Microsoft Outlook. It is basically a Microsoft Outlook add-in that talks to FedEx services. I looked at the demo and I should say it was impressive and exhaustive. It has forms and menus built right into your outlook. Above all, FedEx distributes the app for free!.
Its a paradigm shift where companies are moving away from websites to consumer-side apps. And the next logical step would be composite apps that integrates not just FedEx services but with other external/commercial services as well.
Have a look at a list of other experiments that FedEx is engaged with, in Microsoft Sharepoint / Office areas. In one of the offerings, the FedEx data is integrated with Virtual Earth as well.
I firmly believe that we are few steps away from the tipping point for Composite applications.

What does it take to create Mashup Corporations?

I was recently discussing with a Business Objects report designer regarding a customer's requirement for Ad-Hoc Reports. The Ad-Hoc Reports are targeted for Business Users, who are not really IT savvy. That scenario flashed me an interesting thought on the lines of web 2.0.
If the business-users/Operational users are comfortable in composing 'Ad-Hoc Reports' on their own, why not 'Ad-Hoc Solutions'?. 'Ad-HoC solutions'= 'Mashups'.
If the business users are provided a platform for composing their own mashups, I am sure they would love to compose their own solutions. The million dollar question is - How easy the mashup platform would be for the end users to compose their own solutions?
But beyond Technical limitations, I see the cultural factors play a stronger role in rolling-out Mashup platforms
- Need for educating/informing the business users regarding the new 'Empowerment' of composing apps on their own
- The comfort factor of the new empowerment from all quarters including the security department
- Joint Governance of mashups created by both Business IT

Whether a user constructs a data mashup or a business process mashup, the need for a mashup will typically arise from the respective business user's curiosity/ambition and deeper commitment towards his day-to-day operations. One can correlate this scenario to a well- known situation - How can we make the business users interested towards using Business Intelligence solutions? There is no easy way to sell BI solutions. Similarly there is no easy way to sell web 2.0 or Mashups as well.
They are not just IT solutions. These are solutions have deeper impact in a person's motivation, organization structure and culture.

Instant Mashups

Initially I thought of blogging about technology behind one of my favorite movies 'Shrek'. I will certainly blog about it in my next post.

But, before that, I found something more interesting...

For those of you who are thinking 'Semantic Web' exists only in text, think again...

If you have observed what is going to come out in IE 8, FireFox 3 and Apple's Safari, You know what I am talking about...

Am talking about 'Microformats' that would make context sensitive communication between web sites a reality. The possibilities of end-user programming mashups looks promising. While the tradional mashups programming requires little bit of programming knowledge, the Microformats aims to eliminate that burden as well from the end-users. Building a mashup between two web sites is going to be lot more easier when the technology maturity evolves in this area.

Two thoughts that came to my mind on observing this trend.

1. The concept looks more appropriate in the HTML world. It would be intersting to see how the concept evolves in the context of Rich Internet Applications, especially during times when Internet is becoming omnipresent across devices/formats.

2. If you observe closely, slowly the infrastructure software is morphing itself into enterprise application client software...A sure short example is this scenario...where browsers are becoming little more smart in understanding the context.

Photoshop & Mashups

Recently, my management wanted me to present a formal photograph for the organization brochure. Formal includes a blazer and a tie.

When most of the leaders including myself presented the photographs on time, one person couldn't submit it ontime due to various reasons.

But, He managed to get a photograph with a blazer, but without a tie.

At the same time, He managed to submit the formal photograph wearing a tie.

You want to know how he did it?

He used Photo Editor and digitally borrowed a tie from a fellow collegue's photograph and fixed in his photograph and saved it.

And nobody could identify this change. The photo was as precise and close to real.

OK, Why am talking about all these?

When I heard this story, immediately I felt it is a 'Mashup'. And in this case, the person who did the photo editing was from non-technical background.

That is exactly the purpose of Mashups, isn't it?. It should enable the non-technical users to do a plug-and-play, mix-match of data sources and services to provide a totally new business solution.

So, We have all been doing mashups knowingly or unknowingly...

And, am sure, when we have a platform that provides a seamless interface for business people to drag-and-drap, mix-and-match, the vision for business mashups will get realized.

I can visualize the future enterprise IT, where the IT department will only do Mashups / Composites. No more App development. No more Service Development, either.

Enterprise Mashups Vs Composite Apps

Today morning, while I was driving, I was listening to 'Enterprise Mashups' podcast from Gartner.

It immediately triggered one interesting question - what is the difference between Enterprise Mashups and Composite Applications?.

Some of the observations:

1. Enterprise Mashup are addressed to 'Long Tail' of the enterprise. They are primarily targeted to individuals or small teams. Composite applications are the cousins of Mashups in Enterprise applications world.

2. Enterprise Mashups - Development and Management/Governance is left to individuals/Community.

3. Enterprise Mashups are 'assembled' by individuals/small teams. Composites are 'built' or 'developed'.

4. Enterprise Mashups are not supposed to have any business logic on its own. Composites can have business logic / orchestration logic.

5. Composite applications are much more critical/serious in nature compared to Enterprise Mashups. So, Composites are typically left to IT development teams officially. Composites require a strong governance as well.

6. Enterprise Mashups are based on web 2.0 'Culture' rather than 'Technology'. Composites have their roots in 'Mashups' and 'Web 2.0' but there is more technology flavour to it.

7. Enterprise Mashups are loosely-coupled. Composites are also loosely-coupled, but not to the extent of Mashups.

I think, from pragmatic perspective, its is the company's 'culture' and 'organization structure' that is going to be the key decision factor in web 2.0 or Enterprise Mashup initiatives.

From today's world, it looks like the 'solutions' are pushed to the IT shop to try out new things like web 2.0, Mashups, etc... What is the need of the hour is 'Identification of problem statements or potential pain points or improvement areas' that could be alleviated by these new solutions.