Line of business (LOB) is a general term which refers to a product or a set of related products that serve a particular customer transaction or business need.
"Line of business" often refers to an internal corporate business unit, whereas the term "industry" refers to an external view that includes all competitors competing in a similar market.
For example: "Governance has become the hot topic in SOA over the past year.
As companies' SOA usage becomes real, widespread and line-of-business, the requirement to ensure that the systems are properly governed has emerged as the number one concern for SOA adopters.
"[1] Mobile LOB refers to LOB applications running on mobile computers or PDAs - usually rugged for use in the field to process transaction at the site of the customer with minimum usage of paper.