Tech Shout!

The two tech giants, Google and IBM have teamed up. IBM has reached a deal with Google to bring the consumer Internet into the office by piping YouTube as well as many other Web programs into IBM software. IBM will also be the first vendor to merge Google Gadgets into WebSphere, its commercial portal software.

In the coming months, millions of users of IBM WebSphere will be able to choose from 4,000 exiting Google Gadgets services. Google Gadgets are the mini-Web applications that users can add with the click of a button onto public sites as well as internal office intranets. Some of the Google Gadgets include practical business applications like maps, language translators, instant updates of weather and news, audio search and Wikipedia.

According to Larry Bowden, vice president of the IBM Lotus division for portals and Web services, “These sites are not just valuable to consumers. Businesses want the same content. Why would we keep these two universes separate? Google has APIs (application programming interfaces) that they made available to us to do this project and invested some people, so it’s a very seamless experience.”

The benefits of Google Gadgets services available from within IBM’s WebSphere Portal include:

Increased access to a new set of Web-based communities and social networks: By exposing Web 2.0 style information as portlets, business users get instant access to expertise and information available through such resources as: National Science Digital Library, the Economics Search Engine, and Google Maps.

Expanded number of web applications to help build and expand on new offerings commonly known as composite or hybrid applications: Customers can easily assemble Google Gadgets utilities and services with IBM and IBM Business Partner applications to apply the benefits of ready-to-use consumer applications with pre-configured portal business and industry solutions for faster, more focused organizational responsiveness.

Easy to create links that increase the content value stored in Google gadgets: With Google “Search Gadgets” users can select the utility or service of their choice to display in their portal. Users can also customize Google Gadgets with WebSphere Portal and can view and customize Google Gadgets directly inline from the WebSphere Portal user interface.

As of now IBM has not integrated gadgets from other providers. Bowden expects the company will do so in the future.