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Survivor's Guide to 2007: Enterprise Applications: Page 2 of 6

Mashups combine a wide range of data from disparate sources and present that information in a new way. Chicagocrime.org, for example, mashes Google maps with the Chicago Police Department's database of reported crimes. Although enterprise mashup technology is in its infancy, it's taking significant strides, with specific apps to help customer-service organizations access key data in a single screen, and the toolkits to build them.





Companies To Watch



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Take the customer service rep busily retyping a customer's address: Enterprise mashups and EII can alleviate this problem by aggregating customer data from disparate systems for display within a single screen. Vendors such as Composite Software, IBM and Metamatrix have been working to address this issue by expanding the number of packaged applications that can be aggregated. EII vendors currently support PeopleSoft, Salesforce.com, SAP and Siebel, and give IT an opportunity to collate and display all the information about a customer in a single screen.

Enterprise mashup technology will also take great leaps in 2007, as vendors begin to provide toolkits to build these interactive and dynamic applications. Already, companies like ActiveGrid and Laszlo Systems are offering nearly codeless development environments, in which Web 2.0-like interfaces can be developed quickly. These new mashup tools will take advantage of the newest technologies available to build applications that provide a competitive advantage.

Look Into My Call

While increasing efficiency in a call center is important, self-service capabilities reduce the burden on internal employees by empowering the customer as a key part of the process. For example, smart companies are designating their Web sites as the first place customers head to manage their relationships. BPM (business process management) tools help enable this interactive relationship. Leaders of this new market include Lombardi Software, Pegasystems and Savvion, as well as Fuego, which BEA acquired in March.

If you tried BPM a few years ago and were disappointed, consider giving these vendors another chance. Early suites were very focused on workflow and queue management--but rapid evolution is occurring.