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APIs: Virtual Assets that are the Key to Driving a High Tech Business
Companies like Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Alibaba, and Paypal are examples of businesses that have high valuations but which don’t have any physical assets. One thing these businesses do have though is software and these businesses are experts in using Application Program Interfaces (APIs) to expose their data and software algorithms to increase their business’ value.
Programmableweb.com estimates that there are over 12,000 different APIs. Harvard Business Review estimates that Salesforce.com generates half of its revenues from APIs. Expedia generated 90 percent, and eBay 60 percent.
Brian Lillie, CIO of global data center provider Equinix, said that “CIOs should care a lot about APIs, because they are a way to unlock data and make it available to enterprise applications, customers and partners. APIs can liberate your data… Writing reports on these old systems takes a lot of work and a lot of people. But if you put a handful of APIs in front of that old system of record, you can expose the trapped data to developers who can easily extract it. APIs eliminate the need to write custom reports in archaic languages, like COBOL. It’s a powerful way to give self-service to your organization.”
Lillie said that “with the Internet of Things (IoT), we are going to see a tremendous number of devices and consumer products producing and communicating a huge amount of data… Over time, every one of these devices will have the ability to communicate via an API in an integrated, consolidated and standardized way When APIs meet the Internet of Things, the result is going to be game-changing for most companies.”
