I'm on day two of Software 2008 and the SaaS, PaaS, SOA and Enterprise 2.0 themes couldn't be louder.

In terms of Enterprise 2.0, mashups & integration are the emerging topics to explore.  On the heels of Web 2.0 Expo in SF last week, where the presence of and buzz around enterprise 2.0 offerings increased significantly from the previous years', mashups have been characterized as the "longtail" of IT applications.  I certainly agree with this description.  If you subscribe to the premise that there is significant unmet demand for application development, then it will take little to convince you that mashups can quickly, easily and economically alleviate this frustration with IT. Similar to how iTunes has revealed the longtail of music content by breaking individual song tracks free from the expensive, lengthy and arduous album recording process, mashups break application components free from the lengthy application development cycle.

I no longer have to wait for a 12+ month development cycle to access corporate data from various data sources to approve a customer quote. Serena Software cited the example of combining Salesforce, SAP and PeopleSoft data with external credit score data to provide one of its customers an automated order quoting mashup. Jackbe, Kapow and Denodo are other emerging entrants in the space.

While still evolving and estimated by Forrester at only a $60M market for 2008, mashups will be the presentation layer for these application components, but there will be much more to understand about the actual integration and whether enterprises are willing to pay for it.