Disruptive Conversations

In one of those strange cases that makes we wonder if I should really be merging this blog with Disruptive Telephony, the folks over at Programmableweb.com announced they had been acquired by Alcatel-Lucent. I've long been a fan of the ProgrammableWeb site and their long lists of APIs and mashups, so I'm thrilled for them that they have found a way to keep the site going and evolving.

Still, the marriage with ALU just seems a bit... odd... I'm admittedly still trying to wrap my brain around it a bit. The reality, though, is that the "real-time web" is one in which it is all about APIs, and making data accessible to people and developers through open APIs. To that end, it does make a certain amount of sense for a communication company like ALU to look at how it can gain more prominence in "the API game". Perhaps this is a way to gain access to a developer community and, over time, help familiarize them with ALU products and services. We'll see.

I hope for the ProgrammableWeb folks that it does work out like this:

This milestone is a great opportunity for ProgrammableWeb and our community to work with a global organization who gets what open APIs are about, who value the independence of ProgrammableWeb, and who want to grow the open API ecosystem both in the world of telecommunications and beyond. In the end this step will bring PW to a whole new level in terms of fulfilling our mission to be the go-to place for open API developers.

Congrats to the whole ProgrammableWeb team, and, for the sake of the "open Internet", I do wish them all the best continuing to promote open APIs!

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