That’s a fair point, in principle – but in practice systems that have been cobbled together by business users are as much part of the problem as part of the solution. You’re also electing not to mention that, often as not, the slowness in tweaking existing apps can be down to politics rather than technology. If we’re looking to help companies derive long term value out of their IT, we need to remember only that whatever we implement now, we’re liable to be stuck with in the future – mashup or no mashup.

That’s a fair point, in principle – but in practice systems that have been cobbled together by business users are as much part of the problem as part of the solution. You’re also electing not to mention that, often as not, the slowness in tweaking existing apps can be down to politics rather than technology. If we’re looking to help companies derive long term value out of their IT, we need to remember only that whatever we implement now, we’re liable to be stuck with in the future – mashup or no mashup.

If we extrapolate this process, we end up with a chaotic free for all, which is just silly.

A few specific points:

To Anon: Who exactly are all of these users that you think want, can and need to muck about building their own solutions in an enterprise context? As an ex-SAP person, I have sat through endless workshops with a range of typical ERP/CRM users and all they are generally interested in is just doing their job from 9 to 5 (or during their shift) then going home. Contrary to the premise upon which lots of Web 2.0 theory is based, enterprises are not full of information workers, super users and the like – the vast majority of users of computer systems have very modest, predictable and static needs and are really not that interested.

On the point of end user “self service” when it comes to meeting IT needs, I agree we need more of this, but this should be something that is properly anchored into the underlying corporate architecture, even if it is taking place at the edge. Service providers talk about “edge of network” stuff, perhaps we should be thinking of “edge of infrastructure” solutions.

If user self service activity is divorced from the corporate infrastructure you end up with the mess that is keeping compliance officers awake at night at the moment – lots of “solutions” that the company is reliant on but has no control over.

The right balance seems to be the approach the IBM and Microsoft guys are moving towards with their portal frameworks. Picking up on the SAP example, the work IBM is doing to allow the IT department to “surface” SAP “services” in a safe and controllable manner within an end user customisable portal provides end user flexibility, but with the integrity/dependency considerations taken care of so it’s safe, controllable and auditable.

And when we talk about information workers and super users, let’s be absolutely clear that the centre of their desktop is MS Office, not the browser. Again using SAP as the example, the work Microsoft is doing to surface similar SAP services (alongside other information services) in Office is much more likely to be of benefit. Users can see the information, execute the transactions, etc in whatever way they like, but again, within constraints determined by the underlying architecture that is controlled by the IT department so it is safe and supportable.

As with lots things, there’s always more than one way to skin a cat. Enterprise mashups may have their place, but they need to be considered in the context of IT, user and business needs, and other mechanisms will often allow the same problems to be tackled more effectively and safely.

I agree with Neil and Jon that we have to avoid, ney challenge, evangelism of specific technologies and approaches. All these ideas come and go after all.

If we extrapolate this process, we end up with a chaotic free for all, which is just silly.

A few specific points:

To Anon: Who exactly are all of these users that you think want, can and need to muck about building their own solutions in an enterprise context? As an ex-SAP person, I have sat through endless workshops with a range of typical ERP/CRM users and all they are generally interested in is just doing their job from 9 to 5 (or during their shift) then going home. Contrary to the premise upon which lots of Web 2.0 theory is based, enterprises are not full of information workers, super users and the like – the vast majority of users of computer systems have very modest, predictable and static needs and are really not that interested.

On the point of end user “self service” when it comes to meeting IT needs, I agree we need more of this, but this should be something that is properly anchored into the underlying corporate architecture, even if it is taking place at the edge. Service providers talk about “edge of network” stuff, perhaps we should be thinking of “edge of infrastructure” solutions.

If user self service activity is divorced from the corporate infrastructure you end up with the mess that is keeping compliance officers awake at night at the moment – lots of “solutions” that the company is reliant on but has no control over.

The right balance seems to be the approach the IBM and Microsoft guys are moving towards with their portal frameworks. Picking up on the SAP example, the work IBM is doing to allow the IT department to “surface” SAP “services” in a safe and controllable manner within an end user customisable portal provides end user flexibility, but with the integrity/dependency considerations taken care of so it’s safe, controllable and auditable.

And when we talk about information workers and super users, let’s be absolutely clear that the centre of their desktop is MS Office, not the browser. Again using SAP as the example, the work Microsoft is doing to surface similar SAP services (alongside other information services) in Office is much more likely to be of benefit. Users can see the information, execute the transactions, etc in whatever way they like, but again, within constraints determined by the underlying architecture that is controlled by the IT department so it is safe and supportable.

As with lots things, there’s always more than one way to skin a cat. Enterprise mashups may have their place, but they need to be considered in the context of IT, user and business needs, and other mechanisms will often allow the same problems to be tackled more effectively and safely.

I agree with Neil and Jon that we have to avoid, ney challenge, evangelism of specific technologies and approaches. All these ideas come and go after all.

SOA will work this time because you can use it purely within the enterprise, without upsetting the brahmins of IT.

But I agree with the last commentor who states that business users are sick of IT’s lack of agility. It may very well be that this latest round of mashups is dead simple enough to allow business users to start developing their own composite apps.

You can’t wish away something that appears so strongly to the user, even if we all know that it will cause huge complexity and management problems down the line.

SOA will work this time because you can use it purely within the enterprise, without upsetting the brahmins of IT.

But I agree with the last commentor who states that business users are sick of IT’s lack of agility. It may very well be that this latest round of mashups is dead simple enough to allow business users to start developing their own composite apps.

You can’t wish away something that appears so strongly to the user, even if we all know that it will cause huge complexity and management problems down the line.

the aspiration to which the mashup concept aspires is to free business users from the endless, expensive, usually failing process of IT trying to respond to business requirements. Lets be honest most businesses are being held hostage by their IT & most especially their Development teams. for example say your organisation has invested 20 million in SAP. couple of years later you want to tweak the UI. say hallo to a hell of an expensive & time consuming task requiring highly specialised skills when all you wanted to do was move a couple of things around & add a search box for example. If SAP was properly service enabled business users themselves could do this. check out Netvibes and imagine you were playing with real enterprise data & functionality.

baa humbug mate!

the aspiration to which the mashup concept aspires is to free business users from the endless, expensive, usually failing process of IT trying to respond to business requirements. Lets be honest most businesses are being held hostage by their IT & most especially their Development teams. for example say your organisation has invested 20 million in SAP. couple of years later you want to tweak the UI. say hallo to a hell of an expensive & time consuming task requiring highly specialised skills when all you wanted to do was move a couple of things around & add a search box for example. If SAP was properly service enabled business users themselves could do this. check out Netvibes and imagine you were playing with real enterprise data & functionality.

baa humbug mate!