Business users hungry for taking disparate pieces of data and creating applications to get more business value may get their appetites satisfied when <A HREF="http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Mashups-Show-Promise-But-Require-IT-Governance/?kc=EWKNLENT012508STR2">IBM's Lotus Mashups</A> hits the market later this year.

Lotus Mashups will let users "mash up" various software feeds and widgets to build more valuable applications. Business users will be able to do this without IT personnel holding their hands, IBM officials said.

For example, employees in marketing, sales distribution or business managing will be able to drop data from weather reports, sales figures and inventory into situational applications that can be used when appropriate and easily discarded, Larry Bowden, vice president of portal and Web services interaction at IBM, said during a press briefing at the Lotusphere 2008.