Talking Mashups with Elvis, Caesar, and Gartner

It's only Thursday morning, and I've already had a pretty full week. I got to stay at 'The Second Home of Elvis'. I got to eat with Caesar. And I got to hang out with 20+ Gartner analysts. Where was I? I was at GartnerPalooza (my name, not theirs!), three concurrent Gartner Summits in Las Vegas: 'Portals, Content & Collaboration', 'Web Innovations', and 'Open Source'. For those of you who weren't lucky enough to be there and lose money at the blackjack table like me, I thought you might like a summary of at least a few of the mashup-related items from the event.

First and foremost, it a bit exciting to note mashups are now officially at the peak of the Gartner 'Hype Cycle'. This is interesting as mashups were unheard of a mere 18 months ago and have now leap-frogged some notable but apparently slower trends. On a related front, there are also 3 recent Gartner reports that cover the enterprise mashup world: 'Who's Who in Enterprise 'Mashup' Technologies', 'Reference Architecture for Enterprise 'Mashups'', and ''Mashups' and Their Relevance to the Enterprise'. You might want to check them out if you are a Gartner subscriber and, if not, check out the ZapThink note on our website, 'JackBe Platform for Enterprise Mashups'.

I've made note in the recent past that mashups are hand-in-glove with SOA efforts. Interestingly, Ray Valdes seems to agree and goes one step further, describing mashups as a means to fulfill some of the unkept promises of enterprise portals. Mashups, along with a supporting SOA effort, can bring elements of self-fulfillment and simplicity that are lacking in the enterprise portal packages today, he says. While I don't think I do it justice here, Ray weaves mashups, SOA, and portals together in a compelling, synergistic way.

David Gootzit talked about the 'Portal of the Future' and mashups are a key actor in the tale he told. David described portals as an 'important' entry point for enterprise mashups. More interestingly, he outlined key areas that must be addressed for mashups to become to a first-class portal citizen (like user profiles, security, metadata and portlets) and guidelines to deploying mashups.

And there was more mashup talking to be done. Unfortunately, I had to come home to get ready for AjaxWorld. Which means I am missing Anthony Bradley's session on mashups tomorrow, among others. If anyone has comments on that, I'd love to hear them.

Oh, and Elvis says hi. Stop by his place if you get the chance.