Mobility in business implies two keywords: location independence and personalization. This Executive Report by Bhuvan Unhelkar discusses the mobile enterprise architecture (MEA), which synergizes the crucial aspects of mobility in an architectural framework.

A mobile enterprise architecture (MEA) incorporates the inherent advantages that mobility holds for the business, which are primarily derived from two specific characteristics of mobility: (1) location independence and (2) personalization. A comprehensive MEA treats mobility not as an add-on to the existing business processes but as an integral part of the enterprise architecture.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is meant to enable greater flexibility and improved alignment between business processes and applications. By separating individual services and permitting them to be provided in composite applications, the concept has some revolutionary consequences for IT infrastructure. It is also aligned with business process management (BPM), and some tout it as a paradigm-shifting technology. Most large companies are now implementing SOA in some form, and success stories are starting to command attention.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is meant to enable greater flexibility and improved alignment between business processes and applications. By separating individual services and permitting them to be provided in composite applications, the concept has some revolutionary consequences for IT infrastructure. It is also aligned with business process management (BPM), and some tout it as a paradigm-shifting technology. Most large companies are now implementing SOA in some form, and success stories are starting to command attention.

Mashups are one candidate gaining increasing attention. It is therefore a perfect time for us to produce an issue on this topic to provide you, our readers, with the conceptual framework, the vocabulary, and an overview of the issues surrounding this emerging approach to enterprise business and data integration.

While trying to think about how to begin this article, the revolution that was introduced by the mass-energy association expressed by Einstein's famous mass-energy equivalence formula (E = mc2) came to mind. Strangely, the first letters of the "Enterprise = Mashups Created Content" equation lead to the same formula! While at first glance this may seem like we are only joking, if you think about it carefully, the equation may actually be true.

A few weeks back, I met with the CIO of a global company that has seen incredible growth over the past few years, largely through acquisition. Until recently, this company's strategy for integrating its acquisitions was to streamline everything into the same application interface and ensure all documents followed the same XML schema. To achieve this goal, the organization found it was having to run faster and faster, all the while getting further and further away from its goal of having everything uniform and integrated.

This issue of CBR was very interesting and a lot of fun to write. The topic, mashups, is cutting edge and receiving substantial attention -- at least in its most visible substantiation of consumer mashups -- and it is one of the engines of the Web 2.0 trend. Receiving much less attention is the enterprise application of mashup technologies, and so we made it the focus of this installment of Cutter Benchmark Review.

This survey examined the definition, deployment, and use of enterprise mashups, the technologies and resources used in enterprise mashups, and the success criteria and organizational support for enterprise mashups. Forty-two percent of the 90 responding organizations are based in North America, 28% in Asia/Australia/Pacific, 26% in Europe, and the rest dispersed across South America and Africa.

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Blogs and other social media tools have become quite a permanent phenomenon in the online world. Today, the tremendous community interaction on blogs is a potential hotbed for companies ever eager to gain market insights. Naturally, companies are setting up blogging infrastructures and engaging themselves in eliciting information from these blogs.

In companies everywhere today, it is increasingly common to find people acting in explicitly named "business architect" roles. Currently, there is no industry-wide, consistent definition of the role, and there are vast differences in how organizations choose to utilize their business architects.

Established by Cutter Consortium to help spot emerging trends in IT, digital technology, and in the marketplace, the Cutter Business Technology Council's members are IT specialists whose ideas have become important building blocks of today's wide-band, digitally connected, global economy.

The word "agile" is equipped with an easily understood definition and a lot of street buzz in management circles today. There's no company that would not want this adjective affixed to its reputation. What a definition does not provide is a process roadmap for that successful leap from ponderous to agile. A simple framework can serve as the starting point for that jump.

The word "agile" is equipped with an easily understood definition and a lot of street buzz in management circles today. There's no company that would not want this adjective affixed to its reputation. What a definition does not provide is a process roadmap for that successful leap from ponderous to agile. A simple framework can serve as the starting point for that jump.

"Even though they (and we) may not know it, all organizations already have an embryonic business architecture in place. But today’s problems require a more formal business architecture to connect the business with the technologies it increasingly depends on."

-- Ken Orr, Guest Editor

So what is business architecture (BA)? It means different things to different people, and I'm not going to try to define it here. Instead, I'll describe what aspects of BA I'm concerned with when doing a service-oriented architecture (SOA) project. We all say the service design should be driven by the business, but to be more precise, I say BA must answer the following questions:

So what is business architecture (BA)? It means different things to different people, and I'm not going to try to define it here. Instead, I'll describe what aspects of BA I'm concerned with when doing a service-oriented architecture (SOA) project. We all say the service design should be driven by the business, but to be more precise, I say BA must answer the following questions:

The term "business architecture" means many things to many people. Perhaps this is due to its peculiar combination of the term "business" with the term "architecture." Since architecture is generally discussed in reference to the IT community, the juxtaposition with the term "business" is somewhat unsettling. What does it mean to architect a business, after all?

Today, corporate executives have access to numerous business and technology opportunities for improving enterprise performance. Some deal with the integration of business and technology, while others deal with technology alone. What is motivating these executives to consider the possibilities offered by such performance improvement initiatives? Most likely, they are coming under excruciating pressure to deliver more with less, while increasing profits and cutting costs.

If you are a senior manager or business executive wondering if you need business architecture and what its value to the business is, then read no further; this article does not answer those questions. If, however, you understand the value of business architecture but you do not know where to start, what to do, or how to leverage business architecture in your business planning and day-to-day business management, then please read on.

In companies everywhere today, it is increasingly common to find people acting in explicitly named "business architect" roles. Currently, there is no industry-wide, consistent definition of the role, and there are vast differences in how organizations choose to utilize their business architects.

Voice levels were rising, as were the blood pressures in the room. Figurative lines were being drawn in the sand. The situation would really have been quite humorous if it hadn't been so intimidating. It seems I had gotten too close to the "honey," and a beehive's worth of enterprise architects were coming after me with stingers at the ready.

The The Role of Collaborative Governance in Business Architecture Working Group and The Role of Collaborative Governance in Business Architecture Home Page define The Role of Collaborative Governance in Business Architecture as "A formal blueprint of governance structures, business semantics, and value streams across the extended enterprise."1 The absence of such a blueprint creates a vacuum for management teams seeking to launch new products and services, plan and deploy merger and acquisition strategies, alig