New mashups add muscle to your business tasks and applications

Makers of mashup tools are offering new tools with powerful features that can be used for a variety of purposes such as monitoring competitor pricing and automating manual processes that include Web services or content.
4/23/2008 6:00:00 AM By: Heather Havenstein

A strong argument could be made that any new type of software can't make it to the enterprise without a link to Excel, the lifeblood of many businesses.

Makers of mashuptools are making their move this week to expand their potential customer base by unveiling such links and other features at the Google Maps into a common process.

Now, mashup vendors say, the updated tools can be used as a quick and easy way to integrate data from disparate systems for use in a wide variety of processes like monitoring competitor pricing and automating manual processes that include Web services or content.

Kapow Technologies, for example, Tuesday plans to unveil an on-demand enterprise mashup service that allows companies to incorporate data from various Web sites and services directly into Excel spreadsheets .

The new Kapow OnDemand hosted service is based on the Kapow Mashup Server, which is deployed at more than 300 companies, including Audi, Morgan Stanley and Simply Hired.

The new product adds an Excel Connector that can be used to point to a wide variety of data sources on the Web for automatic insertion into an Excel spreadsheet.

For example, a company could use the application to monitor competitor's product pricing schedules or to add user reviews of their own products to adjust sales efforts, noted Joe Keller, Kapow's chief marketing officer.

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