IBM has announced a new tool to enable organisations to more quickly blend external information and web services with their own content in so-called mash-ups. This will help firms to produce affordable, customised applications to meet specific business challenges, said the firm.

Mash-ups are web pages or applications that typically combine elements from two or more sources using open Web 2.0 technologies such as Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) and syndicated feeds such as RSS.

IBM's Enterprise Mashup, currently being tested by the firm, is a framework to allow less technical users to produce applications in as little as five minutes, according to IBM.

"The Web 2.0-powered IBM Enterprise Mashup puts more capability into an individual’s hands and gives them more freedom to innovate," said Rod Smith, IBM's vice-president of emerging internet technologies, at a recent keynote speech to IT chiefs. "Because Web 2.0 technologies are based on open standards, integrating them into an open business model is easy for end-users and developers alike."

Dan Norris-Jones, co-founder of internet technology consultancy Priocept, said mash-ups offer good value to firms because they can create new applications with low integration and hardware costs and little or no software licensing charges.

The APIs from Google Maps [and others] are effectively free, with no hardware or software support costs [so it is] a very attractive way to build systems and solutions," said Norris-Jones. "But mash-ups are created from open technology so you don't need a specific mash-up development tool [like this] – you should be able to use your existing development tools."