http://www.networkmashups.com/Mashup.aspx
Business drivers for any new architectural initiative would have to be strong to get buy-in from all related stakeholders. This is true even in case of SOA, mashups and Web 2.0. Article in this URL outlines some of the business drivers for these architecture and are summarized below (but with Microsoft going out of its service delivery platform (SDP), it is a pradox now on whether Microsoft realized that these business drivers are not strong enough to continue supporting these architectural principles).
- SOA is not just an effective methodology to implementing enterprise application integration (EAI) but also a means to rationalizing cost. However SOA helps in bringing the network effect, it can take advantage of The Long Tail phenomenon to improve top-line of an organization. But will the organziation wants to embrace network effect is something that organization will have to decide as part of its strategy (also in the long tail it is important to identify niche products/services that can move up the demand curve with certain catalysts).
- Mashups – advertising based revenue models and plan for sticky content and services. How disintermediation & margin rationalization that helped Internet’s near-zero marginal cost of distribution, can also help business to adopt these models?
Now how a service provider take cue from above business drivers to monetize components for which they are the custodians. These components are subscriber location/presence information, security, identity management, quality of service, troubleshooting, customer care, centralized bililng/metering and service provisioning. These can be key offering from operator and can be useful in creating managed network mashups.
This article also highlights some of the key differences between an enterprise based mashup application v/s communication service provider network based applications. Couple of key differences that I can pick are:
- asynchronous invocation in case of communications based application – which compared with synchronous nature of invocation in enterprise applications (like monthly/daily processing of records in an ERP system) makes it a system to be ready 24×7 with required response time
- high frequency of events handled in communication system
- rapid creation and deletion of objects
- multiple data source based decision, often memory database based access
Most striking difference mentioned is profit center v/s cost center i.e., each communication element needs to be managed service element with customer being charged for their usage. However in case of enterprise application, their operation cost tend to get treated as part of IT cost center. But since in communication services, many elements get involved in delivery of a service e.g., voice or data or content, separating usage for these elements for services would be necessary to make a certain service as profit center. However I do think that this is a very good approach that an operator can take to create profit centers out of each services and make the network infrastructure as a shared center.
