Enterprise Widgets and Enterprise Mashups

Categories: Web 2.0, Widgets, enterprise 2.0 — admin at 3:47 am

Some time ago I talked about Enterprise 2.0, the transformation taking place within the enterprise as companies move towards embracing Web 2.0 technologies and practices. Two interesting components of this corporate trend are enterprise widgets and enterprise mashups. Enterprise widgets are hardly a new concept – a growing number of companies have been using widget to distribute software and services to enterprise web sites and desktops. Organization as large as IBM are getting behind mashups and in fact have recently partnered with Google to allow integration of more than 4,000 Google Gadgets with WebSphere portals. Others like SAP have been experimenting with widget and are finding that enterprise widgets have requirements not seen in the consumer space. When it comes to deployment, some like Etelos (CRMforGoogle) are deploying widgets using existing web-based platforms (iGoogle, Netvibes, i.e.) while other are sticking to desktop platforms (like Windows Vista), stand-alone widgets or proprietary widget engines.

If your company is considering enterprise widgets, here are some common requirements that may impact your enterprise widgets efforts:

The ability to work well within a firewall environment
Integration with existing SSO (Single-sign on) systems
Improved cross-platform support
Support for enterprise security
Support for notification and alerts
Integration with CRM, ERP and Business Analytics (BA) systems

Widget platform providers are paying attention and are adding support for enterprise widgets. Netvibes, for example, is partnering with WorkLight provide secure enterprise widgets for transactional use within companies. iGoogle is being used by IBM and SAP and has a 600 person organization dedicated to bringing Google technology to the enterprise. Expect more and more companies to embrace enterprise widgets to deliver real-time information and notifications from enterprise systems.