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Phil Wainewright has an interesting post on the progress being made with SaaS enterprise-grade ”mashups”.  

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, in technology a mashup is a combination of data from several different sources provided to the user through one integrated tool.  This is not a new concept.  But its development in the SaaS space is still in its early stages, especially as it pertain to enterprise-grade applications.

In essence, a SaaS mashup is the combination of multiple SaaS applications to provide an integrated SaaS service offering.  The benefit to the SaaS providers is obvious, as they have the opportunity to serve more customers.  More important, though, are the benefits availed to customers of SaaS mashups, including:

1. The ability to purchase solutions bundles for less than the price of the individual parts;
2. Access to multiple best-in-breed solutions, unavailable with stand alone offerings;
3. Pre-fab integration; and
4. Low implementation and support costs classically associated with SaaS.

Several questions come to mind as it related to the customers of MVaaS:

• Should a SaaS mashup offering be crafted for the QSR, fast casual dining and retail customer sets?
• Other than MVaaS, what other software offerings would be crucial to provide a compelling application bundle?  POS?  Digital Signage?  Security and Access Control?  Above store reporting?
• Are there reliable enterprise grade SaaS offerings for POS?

I am interested if our readers have knowledge of what, if anything, has been tried.  Can you think of other applications that are natural candidates for bundling with MVaaS?