JackBe, a provider of enterprise mashup software, has introduced a new version of its mashup platform that incorporates the capability to create an internal "app store" similar to the app store that Apple hosts for iPhone and iPad users. The new release of Presto (version 3.0) provides a platform for creating internal enterprise app stores, as well as a visual toolset for creating enterprise apps.
"Everybody gets what an app is," Chris Warner, vice president of marketing for JackBe, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "Apple has done a brilliant job in getting people to understand these little pieces of software that do something. Our offering isn't really a store, because there are no transactions, but the metaphor is there, and people get it."
JackBe's visual tools make it easy for non-developers to create enterprise Apps, share them with other enterprise users through the app store, and deploy them to enterprise destination such as portals, SharePoint, iGoogle, and mobile devices. Presto 3.0 also includes enhancement to Wires, a visual mashup-making tool, Mashboard, a new app assembly and wiring tool, and Mashup Sites for SharePoint, an advanced SharePoint add-on that mashes SharePoint Lists and publishes apps as SharePoint WebParts.
Warner says the intent of Presto's internal app store is to enable users to publish and distribute their own applications across their own organizations. "The app store is end user-centric," he explains. "A person that doesn't have to know anything about the technology, but really understands the business, and understands the app, can go and find and share and use."
Apps posted within the Presto directory can also be deployed to other enterprise registry/repository directories, including HP Systinet. The capabilities for moving apps are bi-directional, meaning apps contained within HP Systinet can be surfaced in Presto, and vice-versa, Warner says. "We have an add-on that we provide for HP Systinet integration, so the registry repository is interoperable with our product. So we can actually suck in the resources that are there from that repository and make that available, and provide controls. The mashup can be exposed as a web service, WSDL-based SOAP service, or exposed as a web-based service."
JackBe also says it will be making a cloud-based Developer Edition of Presto 3.0 available to all members of its Mashup Developer Community.
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