Perfect service cocktail
June 04, 2009
Stirred, not shaken: The University of Mannheim is currently working on an ambitious research project with the fitting name of “Cocktail”. We asked Mannheim professors Thomas Specht and Rainer Gerten from the Institute for Internet Technologies and IT Management what is behind the measure, promoted by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
What is the project about?
Thomas Specht: Scientists and students are developing a flexible IT platform together with partners from industry (CAS Software AG and YellowMap AG in Karlsruhe, T-Systems and visionapp AG in Eschborn, as well as ProSyst in Cologne) and research (Fraunhofer IAO in Stuttgart and Forschungszentrum Informatik [Research Center for Information Technology] in Karlsruhe). Using standard interfaces, software manufacturers are incorporating service components into their ready-made solution which companies can lease inexpensively over the net. This means that they do not need to install or administer anything themselves.
Thomas Specht: Scientists and students are developing a flexible IT platform together with partners from industry (CAS Software AG and YellowMap AG in Karlsruhe, T-Systems and visionapp AG in Eschborn, as well as ProSyst in Cologne) and research (Fraunhofer IAO in Stuttgart and Forschungszentrum Informatik [Research Center for Information Technology] in Karlsruhe). Using standard interfaces, software manufacturers are incorporating service components into their ready-made solution which companies can lease inexpensively over the net. This means that they do not need to install or administer anything themselves.
That sounds like software as a service. What is special about “Cocktail”?
Thomas Specht: .The services on the platform can be continually recombined and individually assembled via standard interfaces. This creates a cocktail of high-quality services, so-called mash-ups, which in turn can themselves be used as a basis for additional services. Each employed service is independent of other services, so that it can be separately marketed and operated. This makes the platform suitable for the most varied application cases. Ideally, users will be able to find the respective necessary service worldwide via an online directory.
Thomas Specht: .The services on the platform can be continually recombined and individually assembled via standard interfaces. This creates a cocktail of high-quality services, so-called mash-ups, which in turn can themselves be used as a basis for additional services. Each employed service is independent of other services, so that it can be separately marketed and operated. This makes the platform suitable for the most varied application cases. Ideally, users will be able to find the respective necessary service worldwide via an online directory.
For software providers this will give rise to additional marketing channels and sources of income. They can also first check whether new services will be popular on the market before they invest too much in development. Or they can integrate an offered service into the existing software in order to save costs and expand their application quickly and sensibly.
