Consumer 2.0 technologies are now merging with the corporate 2.0 applications. One of such new applications round the block are business mashups.

A mashup, a web-based application, combines multiple data and visual sources into a single view. A simple example of a mashup can be seen while using Google maps. When looking at a particular location users can see the price of the property or locate restaurants nearby.

Business mashups solve business problems which are typically woven into the process-driven framework. These can be used both by large enterprises as well as small and medium businesses to reduce the time taken to complete a task, thereby reducing costs.

For instance the mashups can be integrated with the ERP, SAP, CRM, Siebel etc tools for quicker data availability from different sources into one single source. A typical example can be when a sales representative enters data into the salesforce.com site which can be viewed at the same time by the HR, finance or the administration teams.

Business mashups can be easily created by the tech savvy administrators, eliminating the need for specialised IT coders to work on such minute tasks. For the SMBs this can be a major help as they will now be able to solve simple IT tasks easily, ensuring faster and smoother functioning of the system.

“By empowering mashers (business mashups), corporations will eventually reduce the substantial application backlog that plagues organisations today,” says Timothy S Zonca, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Serena Software.

Serena Software’s mashup tools are available for businesses to create new composite applications and deploy them to the internet without the need for specialised IT resources. The mashup composer, a drag-and-drop environment, makes it easy to visually design business mashups that automate common business activities.

“It can take about one and a half to two minutes to create a mashup,” says Mr Zonca. This mashup composer, its visual design environment, is free of charge to all users. Customers only pay for business mashups when they are deployed into production.

Also in February 2008, Serena will take its mashup exchange live, creating an online marketplace where partners will build, buy and sell business mashups. The company expects about 50 applications to be made available during that time. “These mashups can be free or made available on-demand, depending on the usage,” informs Mr Zonca.

Companies such as IBM have their QED wiki that does mashups. “The main difference here is that most mashups provide only data from different sources. Our tools help for data integration, user experiences, architecture and even take care of the usability,” says Mr Zonca.

Some of the organisations using Serena business mashups are LookSmart, Intuit etc. “The new and improved forms in serena business mashup composer will allow us to build Mashups with great usability. The financial services industry is fast-paced, and I don’t have time train employees on how to use new applications.

It has to be drop-dead simple. The composer allows me to create user friendly interfaces for better user adoption,” says John Hastings-Kimball, Vice President of Workflow Solutions, Thomson Financial.