Enterprise Mashup is one of the buzz words which sit in my mind for quite a long time. I am not sure if I should pay some attention to this word, just like any other buzz words, which might appear and disappear at the same speed. When today I saw the new post "Enterprise mashups, SOA's killer app" at SearchSOA.com, which claims that it is sexier than SOA because it rings bells with business people. This also reminds me that just two weeks ago I came across the link about "Enterprise Mashup v Composite Application", saying that he likes the idea about re-birth ‘composite applications’ under the Enterprise 2.0 banner.

So, time to dig it out. Starting from Wikipedia, Mashup (web application hybrid) is defined as

a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool...

That rings a bell. I have a google mashup! My personalized google home page is a perfect example about this definition. It pulls all the data for my RSS feeds I subscribed. This mashup is very important for me now as it tells me all the information I care around the world.

So why the enterprise needs a mashup?  Gartner Voice has a good explanation:

Mashups - Web technology-based lightweight composite applications created by sourcing capabilities from established content and systems functionality - are moving into the enterprise and are poised to enable end-user-assembled applications.

It becomes popular in the enterprise as there are more and more mash-able components  (because of the SOA implementation) and it enables people who do not have much programming experience could make a mashup application, which solves some particular business problem. Finance and government sectors are the two early adopters on mashup to quickly set up new applications which add new value on their existing legacy system, known as the long tail players.

I don't really interest in the differences between Enterprise Mashup and Enterprise Portal or Composite Application. I think the most important thing about Enterprise Mashup is people are seeing something from the SOA implementation, as Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst with ZapThink LLC says:

Enterprise mashups are becoming the killer use-case for SOA, that is, the ostensible reason for doing SOA from the perspective of the business. So, SOA is stronger than ever, it's just becoming part of the woodwork. Enterprise mashups are the part that shows."

Yes, I can see on the way towards Enterprise Web 2.0 technology, enterprise mashup will play an important role as many mash-able components are built with SOA implementation and the mashup technology brings more flexible development ability to the professionals as well as to the end users.