At the MySQL User's Conference in April, there were a number of new startups coming to market. One market that I think could be huge is for open source EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) software. I worked in the EAI space for a number of years, helping take Active Software public in 1999 as VP of Marketing and then staying on with webMethods when they acquired Active. The EAI market had huge growth during that time, fueled by the need for new internet systems to integrate with legacy applications. The need still exists today, but the growth has leveled off as traditional EAI solutions have been too complex and expensive for most CIOs.
I think there's a great opportunity for someone to come in and simplify EAI with a solution that works for 90% of the needs out of the box, with the ability for the most demanding customers to customize it to their own needs. This is exactly the type of middleware that could benefit from open source.
One of the newest open source startups is Jitterbit, started by entrepreneur Sharam Sasson, co-founder of Scopus Technology, an early CRM vendor. Jitterbit aims to tackle standard enterprise integrations at a fraction of the price of closed source alternatives. Jitterbit version 1.is now available under a Mozilla license. They've also enabled the creation of pre-built integrations, known as Jitterpacks. Already Jitterpacks are available for Salesforce.com, SugarCRM and Amazon.com and hopefully more will follow in the coming months.
- Jitterbit: Jitterbit 1.0 Released
- InfoWorld: Jitterbit Shakes Up Application Integration
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