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We’ve been hearing about how the new IT world eventually will be powered by a few new economies: 1) the application economy; 2) the internet of things economy; and/or 3) the API (application programming interface) economy.
No one of them will be dominant; they’re all relevant because they rely upon each other to carry out their functions.
Although the API management economy sounds the geekiest and least-understandable of the three, it’s among the most important to IT companies, and for a lot of reasons.
Oracle was the latest big-time tech company to see this light and do something about when it announced Jan. 19 that it is acquiring little-known, San Francisco-based Apiary to provide an API division for itself. Terms of the deal were not released.
Red Hat bought 3Scale last June and Google bought Apigee last September for pretty much the same reasons: to own good management software for APIs, which are the main connectors of everything in the internet. These connectors have to work efficiently and be secure for transactions to be handled well for both vendor and customer.
Other API Providers Might Be Moving, Too
A number of other companies, such as CA, Dell, Cisco Systems, ServiceNow, BMC, ManageEngine, Experian and VMware, already have API-dedicated resources in house.
Six-year-old Apiary.io makes a hosted suite of tools that help companies build web APIs quickly, test and monitor them and document them. It provides API owners with necessary infrastructure and helps them build relationship with their users.
The company’s APIFlow solution provides the framework and tools for creating and updating APIs that share enterprise services and data inside efficient cloud-based applications.
Apiary has helped companies create hundreds of thousands of APIs, Oracle said. APIFlow spans the API creation lifecycle, including design, governance, testing and documentation, while supporting API Blueprint and OpenAPI industry standards.
Advanced Capabilities to Design, Maintain APIs
“Oracle’s API Integration Cloud enables companies to secure, consume, monetize, and analyze APIs,” said Amit Zavery, Oracle Senior Vice President of Integration Cloud. “With Apiary, Oracle will also provide customers advanced capabilities to design and govern APIs, allowing companies to manage the entire API lifecycle and deliver integrated applications.”
Whether Apiary CEO and founder Jakub Nešetril is going to remain with Oracle for the short or long term was not included in the announcement.