IBM's alphaWorks Release Free Preview of Enterprise Mashup Maker

WebKnowHow
Thursday, February 8, 2007; 05:53 AM

IBM  announced the release of its enterprise mashup technology, QEDWiki, on alphaWorks, IBM’s online community which provides early adopters with access to new and emerging software technology from IBM research and development labs around the world. IBM is providing users with a free preview of QEDWiki on alphaWorks to enable them to evaluate the enterprise mashup technology in real business situations and provide valuable feedback for broader assessment.

QEDWiki will be offered as a hosted technology on the recently unveiled alphaWorks Services site, allowing users to access the mashup maker as a service over the internet and help further develop it in a collaborative environment. By eliminating the need to download and install QEDWiki, IBM is engaging the early adopter community as early as possible in the development process, and inviting them to participate in its evolution. To access QEDWiki on alphaWorks, please visit: http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/qedwiki.

QEDWiki, which is based on Web 2.0 technologies, is applicable for business situations. IBM’s Enterprise Mashup Technology breaks down the barriers of traditional application development and provides a framework that uses information from the Web and wiki technology to allow people to create a customized application in less than five minutes. For instance, many businesses rely on weather conditions when planning daily operations. QEDWiki can help a logistics manager 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 snow storm. By using the enterprise mashup maker, the manager can "drag and drop" weather reports, online maps and the company’s national hardware inventory data into an application that will show which stores will be effected by the storm and which stores need inventory. The technology can quickly enable a store manager to prioritize product deliveries to meet customer demand within a small timeframe.

"alphaWorks is known for launching emerging technologies and delivering IBM’s most cutting-edge work into the hands of early adopters," said Kathy Mandelstein, director of Worldwide Developer Programs for IBM. "By offering QEDWiki on alphaWorks, IBM is enabling organizations to test drive the enterprise mashup technology and provide valuable feedback to help shape it for future use in the mainstream business arena."

Situational applications or ’mashups’ blend external information and web services -- news feeds, weather reports, maps, traffic conditions -- 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 online 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).

In related news, alphaWorks recently unveiled a new research topic focused on collaborative development environments (CDEs). In software development, a collaborative development environment allows developers and stakeholders to share ideas and knowledge and work together toward a common task. QEDWiki and Web Relational Blocks are among the first technologies to be available on this topic.

With these research topics, IBM provides a collection of resources -- technology downloads, demos, and articles -- to help build awareness and understanding about an emerging topic. Other research topics available on alphaWorks include resources for RFID, Cell Broadband Engine technology, Accessibility, Visualization, and Semantics. For more information, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/alphaworks/topics/cde.