At its annual Lotusphere conference, IBM showed off an early version of Lotus Mashups, a tool designed to let businesspeople, rather than professional programmers, quickly assemble Web applications.

The application will let people combine, or mash up, data from enterprise applications and the Web. It uses a browser-based visual tool and a set of pre-built widgets for displaying information, with the software scheduled to be released in the middle of this year.

A mashup that combines mapping and storm-related information with an inventory system. (Credit: IBM)

IBM has been pursuing the idea of giving end users in businesses powerful enough tools to build their own applications.

These Web applications may be relatively simple and only be used for a short time. But IBM executives have said that it represents a significant business opportunity for its Lotus collaboration software division.

For example, a user could build a mashup that combines weather information with a retail management system to adjust inventories based on project weather patterns.

A mashup that combines business social networking and comapny organization charts. (Credit: IBM)

IBM first started with end user-driven software development when it introduced QEDWiki two years ago, a product with a similar goal.

Lotus Mashups will use the QEDWiki technology, which IBM's Emerging Technology group first developed, but it will be a separate commercial product, said Doug Heintzman, director of strategy for IBM's collaboration technologies.

"We want to push the potential of mashups into the business domain," Heintzman said. "We expect to put forward no only catalogues of widgets but catalogs of mashups."

Heintzman said he thought it could be possible that in the future, IT departments will analyse the applications created by end users and "harden" them for broader deployment within companies.

Last year at Lotusphere, IBM introduced other products inspired by Web 2.0-style consumer applications, including Lotus Connections, social-networking software for businesses.

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