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Currently I think about the term Enterpise Application Integration. Normally it is defined as a set of methods to integrate applications in one enterprise.

But now, if somebody integrates two or more applications located in various companys, what is the right term for this. Is it also Enterprise Application Integration?

Can we say IEAI (Inter-Enterprise Application Integration)? Or is it simple Company Communication? Or is it any other term I haven't heard so far.

What would you say?

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Are the 2 or more applications being replaced by a new application or does another application have to communicate with those 2 or more applications? For example a CMS application may integrate with an ERP application or CRM application and all 3 remained used for different purposes. On the other hand, some companies may have a few applications that all serve the same purpose that are integrated into a single application, so could you clarify the question a bit, please. – JB King Aug 22 '11 at 17:21
Are you trying to use this as a way to market a product? – JeffO Aug 22 '11 at 18:32
No I don't wan't to use it for marketing a product. I need the term for a report. It is more a conceptual question. – martin Aug 23 '11 at 6:49

4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

B2B (business-to-business) integration, as opposed to A2A (application-to-application).

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up vote 1 down vote

I searched and I couldn't find a suitable term. However, I think the term integration simply suits what you follow now. The main purpose of any integration is to combine isolated parts into a unified whole. Thus when you have 3 isolated applications, say an inventory software, a CRM, and a BI solution, and you want to join'em together, this can simply be called integration. I mean, the most important key term in any combination describing this phenomenon is integration.

We call any of these processes integration in our company. For example, we want to integrate two teams together. Or we want to integrate sales people with development people, or we want to integrate our online sales software with our CRM.

I think as far as people know each other, we're good to go.

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up vote 0 down vote

Mashup would seem to be an application term if the combined application is web-based though this does have many interpretations.

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I would avoid that term because there are many other meanings: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup I had previously only been familiar with the music/video definitions – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner Aug 22 '11 at 17:32
up vote 0 down vote

I've seen inter-enterprise application integration referred to as choreography. As far as I understand this funny term was invented to reflect the fact that in this case the process involves independent entities

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