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IBM, Google team on portal, Web mash-ups

By John Fontana , Network World , 02/28/2007

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IBM Wednesday said it was linking nearly 4,000 Google Gadgets to its WebSphere portal in a move that lets users create mash-ups between enterprise and Web-based services while maintaining it all under corporate security and management controls.

IBM Portlet for Google Gadget lets users pull Google Gadgets into their network, turn them into portlets and then use them safely behind the firewall.

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The use of the Gadgets, which will be provided at no cost, is supported in WebSphere Portal 6.0 and WebSphere Portal Express.

Google's gadgets
IBM has struck a partnership with Google to offer WebSphere Portal users the chance to integrate their network services with Google Gadgets, small applications that perform a specific function and manage and secure them locally. Here is a look at some of the gadgets Google offers.

Related Content

Gadget	Function
Google Map	Enter ZIP code or address to get a local map.
myWeather	Enter ZIP code or location code for international cities to retrieve reports from the Weather Channel Web site.
4 World Clocks	Four analog clocks show selected time zones for countries and cities. Useful for globally dispersed teams.
Dictionary.com	Look up keywords in Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com or Reference.com.
Loan Calculator	Simple-interest loan calculator.
Flight Status	Obtain flight status and do tracker searches by flight or route, or view arrivals and departures at airports.
Podcast Search	Find everything related to podcasts.
Del.icio.us Bookmarks	Displays Yahoo/del.icio.us bookmarks, based on user name and tags.

Click to see: Google's gadgets

Google is supplying IBM with a set of APIs to foster the integration. A refresh mechanism ensures that the Gadgets are constantly updated.

The Google Gadgets include services such as Maps, World Clocks, a YouTube Player, Chat and a language translator.

IBM officials said users could do things such as integrate Maps and customer contact applications so when a WebSphere Portal users click on a customer they are presented with a Map and directions to that customer’s location. Users also could overlay Google’s traffic information service or World Clocks to display the current time in the customer’s time zone.

“Once the [Gadget] has been obtained and is in place within the enterprise environment, WebSphere Portal security and administration recognize the service and manages it and keeps it in the same environment as the rest of the Portal experience,” says Larry Bowden, vice president of portals and Web interaction services for IBM.