Alcatel-Lucent has greatly enhanced its Open API program as well as its Developer Platform with the acquisition of a companmy called ProgrammableWeb. Since 2005, the company has made a religion out of “mashups” and fostering the growth of Web 2.0.

The ProgrammableWeb Website is literally littered with links to application development tools, community resources and (especially) a repository of more than 5,000 mashups which take advantage of more than 2,000 “open APIs” (application programming interfaces) to help glue together content or resources from the likes of IfbyPhone, Twilio, Amazon.com, Google, MapQuest, Constant Contact and WhitePages.com.

ALU provided no figure for the cost of the acquisition. Its management assured the developer community and ProgrammableWeb’s employees that the company would continue to operate as an independent entity for the foreseeable future as its continues to grow its code base and community of developers. This arm’s length strategy served ALU well in the contact center and CTI market where Genesys operated independently for roughly ten years.

This is a timely competitive move for ALU, whose management recognizes the geometric growth in demand for reliable communications infrastructure that “enterprise mashups” is fostering. It represents a quantum leap in the growth of developer resources, as well as the community of developers that use them. It is a force multiplier where community members foster the sort of geometric growth that occurs when the most popular content and services are ingrained into new portals, channels, widgets, gadgets or Web sites. In posts like this, the company’s blog chronicles how community members build services that include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Maps or Last.FM. At some point this creativity had become contagious.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Alcatel-Lucent, Recombinant Communications, Mashups, APIs