Apigee has a new platform for customers to manage API-driven business efforts that extends from purchase-to-payment of digital assets. The service is meant for organizations, such as telecommunications providers, that sell services delivered through an API.
Apigee has designed the platform so a customer can get help with pricing, notifications set-up and limits that tell when a number of products have been sold. It comes with an administration platform and developer platform for billing. Licensed on a yearly basis, the platform is available both in the cloud and on-premise.
The communication through the API monetization platform is two-way. For example, telecommunications customers have often had to send email notifications when there was a change to a rate plan for one of its digital services. With the new platform, the service is automated so a customer can set up notifications for the developer subscribing to the plan.
The issue extends to the finance department with API providers historically collecting money by invoice from developers. With the platform integration, a bill gets automatically sent to the customer with real-time credits and deductions to the developer’s account without having to invoice.
In the overall market, there are companies that are digital native and those that do not have the background with APIs. Apigee is trying to serve both markets. They are offering easier API integration for the more seasoned customers and the expertise to show how the service can be offered and managed for the clients newer to the ways of the API economy.
APIs are becoming part of the mainstream business world. Until most recently, APIs have primarily been viewed as a way to connect apps. But they are increasingly used as a gateway for customers to sell services. This is evident in how they are getting baked deeper into enterprise systems. Intel acquired Mashery for $180 million this spring to offer the API platform to serve as a way to connect back-end systems to the cloud.
In essence Apigee is offering its customers a deeper way to automate the selling process and subsequent management of a customer’s digital assets. That’s something we can expect to see more often as APIs move deeper into the mainstream business world.
Disclosure: Apigee’s Sam Ramji needed a place to stay while here in Portland this week for OSCON so he bunked at our house.