Providing tools for entrepreneurs (rather than software engineers) to build their own applications has been discussed many times but has yet to become clear. IBM’s new project, QEDwiki, is bringing this idea to fruition.
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Source: G3Group |
Rod Smith, Vice President of IBM’s New Technology Division, introduced the QEDwiki software yesterday, which stands for “quick and easily done wiki,” while discussing “Big Blue’s” increasing interest in command languages. “The goal of QEDwiki is to help individuals create their own websites by dragging and dropping various components into a table,” Smith stated.
For instance, an entrepreneur could build a dashboard to track how weather affects sales at retail outlets. By gathering information from public websites, such as mapping and weather services, they can “assemble” this into a simple yet useful application.
“The concept of mashups (software that combines data and services from multiple web businesses) is garnering significant interest from IT organizations. We’ve realized that a new generation of applications is about to emerge,” Smith noted.
Several web technologies, such as RSS, XML, and wikis (websites that allow users to edit any information they read), are gradually being adopted in business environments.
IBM aims to integrate these technologies into software and services to create applications that are “quickly developed and have relatively short lifespans.” QEDwiki will cater to those who want to build web applications without needing support from programming experts. It utilizes AJAX code and a wiki that collects and shares information, such as Atom and RSS feeds (Atom is a technology similar to RSS).
For those seeking more customization, individuals can combine PHP with QEDwiki. IBM is allowing some customers to experiment with QEDwiki and may release the official software on the Alphaworks website (IBM’s technology innovation platform) later this year.
P.T.
