Highly pliable software platforms with mashups, widgets, SaaS, etc.

Dion Hinchcliffe reports:

We’re already witnessing this [highly pliable software platforms] with the rise of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud computing, enterprise mashups, collaborative intranets that can be maintained almost entirely by workers (Enterprise 2.0), and the growing use of smaller, more granular microapplications such as widgets, gadgets, and visual feeds to combine and connect things together across corporate networks. Applications these days are also more open and federation-friendly, frequently offering Web services and APIs with a high degree of customizable features that make them easier to tailor for specific situations. While there is still a long way to go before we have fully mashable enterprises, today’s newest IT solutions are already simpler and sleeker yet more powerful and open than ever before, providing more on-the-ground control, adaptability, integration-readiness, and customizabiity. This is the often worker-driven canvas upon which next generation enterprise architecture must function and thrive.