DataMashups.com is the latest Ajax-based web app development service to be released. It’s a hosted service for developers and offers an integrated development environment “to rapidly create mashups and web applications with limited or no need for server side code”. The service is based on the open source AppliBuilder – a AJAX builder tool. The product blog explains more and notes that they took their cue from Ning, Zoho Creator and others.
When I first heard about DataMashups.com, I immediately wondered if they are targeting non-technical users as well as developers – given that Ning has had problems gaining traction amongst non-developers (who Ning targeted). Tony Thomas from DataMashups.com explained:
“We’re clearly targeting the developer market. We’re relatively recent to the online development idea, having been quietly working on distributed data and data integration. But once we got into the model of doing the development online, we see a lot of potential for this technology in the enterprise. Having such tools setup in the enterprise could open the door to interesting new applications with enterprise data, since enterprise developers can try out new applications with no setup required, and small investments of their time.”
So the enterprise is a key market for DataMashups.com. Is there a consumer market aspect to their plans too? Tony said:
“We’re not as sure about the online service, and whether there is a viable business there. It should serve as an easy way for new prospects to try the product, and expose us to new ideas and requirements. But we do not expect it to be a significant revenue opportunity for us. Would be great to be surprised on the upside there, but we’re not expecting that.”
Check out DataMashups.com and let me know how it compares to Ning, Zoho Creator and the recently launchedDabble DB (my write-up of that is on ZDNet).
Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)