Simon Willison’s Weblog

2nd August 2005 - Link Blog

Jeff Barr on Greasemonkey. Greasemonkey for "Enterprise Application Integration".

Despite the odd name, Greasemonkey embodies a very cool and somewhat unique concept, something that I am starting to think of as low-budget, client-side application integration. In the late 90’s, “EAI” or Enterprise Application Integration, was all the rage. Companies that had the need to make disparate applications work together would spend tens of thousands of dollars on complex, fragile software to make it happen. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. When it didn’t, they would call in armies of even more expensive consultants.

Now, I’ll be the first to say that Greasemonkey in its present form isn’t quite ready to replace expensive, commercial EAI software. However, I do believe that it belongs in the enterprise developer’s tookit of possible solutions, and I also believe that Greasemonkey will gain features, power, and respect over the coming months and that now is the time to learn more about it.