Analysts say it’s too soon to tell if IT vendors that bought cloud companies have gained, but they should focus on integrating and aligning them to customer needs in order to maximize their buys.
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Alcatel-Lucent apiGrove — A New, Open-Sourced API Management Service
Alcatel-Lucent is open-sourcing a new API software engine and management platform called apiGrove that is meant to serve as a services layer for enterprises and large service providers.
Alcatel-Lucent’s goal is to make apiGrove a core layer in a cloud infrastructure so customers may either use it to connect to apps or infrastructure environments. The apiGrove installation package, source code, and documentation are available on GitHub under an Apache 2.0 license. ApiGrove is based on Alcatel-Lucent’s API platform.
APIs are considered a distribution engine for doing business online. Apps that have APIs can be distributed through other apps and services. There are countless companies that use APIs but the methods to manage them are changing as service providers and enterprise providers transform their infrastructures to be multi-tenant and elastic.
On the flip side, it is taking some time for organizations to automate and orchestrate data centers to fit with the cloud providers. Adding to the dynamic, lines of business are using APIs to connect with platforms for such uses as test and development or application integration. The intent for most is to innovate and develop apps to gain market advantage.
The API provider market is going through its own transformation. Companies like Layer 7 have made their mark over the years by offering services oriented architecture (SOA) management, the preferred method for application management prior to web oriented architecture coming into vogue with RESTful APIs. These REST-based APIs now represent the most common way to connect different services.
Newer entrants include Apigee, which is now offering its API management platform for free. Mashery and 3Scale also play in this market. Programmable Web has a complete list here.
Alcatel-Lucent is trying to disrupt the market by open-sourcing its platform to be a service that allows for service providers to automate the API management layer for end customers.
It’s a move for Alcatel-Lucent that has some potential upside. But there is always a question about what interest developers will take in developing a new platform. That’s the challenge for Alcatel-Lucent.
†‘Open sourcing’ a proprietary closed source product is usually a red herring,†said Sam Ramji of Apigee. “The only thing that matters in open source is community interest and contributions. Everything else is a publicity stunt. Starting open source is much easier than ‘going open source.’ “
Read more at TechCrunch
Samsung Sells 20M+ Galaxy S IIIs In 100 Days: A Benchmark Or A Red Herring For Apple, Nokia, Amazon?
Nokia and Motorola had their day in the device spotlight yesterday, and today it Amazon’s turn, with Apple’s next week. So in the middle of all of this, just to make sure we don’t forget about it, Samsung has released some numbers on sales of its newest smartphone, the Galaxy S III.
Samsung has sold over 20 million units of the handset in the first 100 days of launch: 6 million in Europe, 4.5 million in Asia (ex. Korea), 4 million in North America and 2.5 million in Korea. Samsung is the world’s biggest mobile phone company at the moment, so should sales of its flagship device be viewed as a benchmark for competitors?
While we don’t have like-for-like numbers, we do have some historical figures that give us some points to ponder, and in my opinion, the only company that Samsung’s figures should matter for is Nokia.
Apple’s last launch, the iPhone 4S, sold 4 million devices its first weekend out of the gate.
And Nokia yesterday told analysts that it had sold 7 million Lumia devices since launch in October last year (that’s the whole range of four models).
Samsung’s Galaxy S III sales therefore put it somewhere between those two, closer to the Apple end of the spectrum. Samsung’s prominence in mobile phones, remember, comes from its scale and range of devices, not the success of a single model.
So how does that translate into what happens going forward with new device launches? Samsung notes that the S III has picked up momentum versus previous versions of the device: in the same space of 100 days from launch, Samsung sold three times as many units as the S II, and six times as many as the Galaxy S.
But I suspect a lot of that momentum is a function of how smartphones are simply growing in popularity. Apple’s iPhone 4S, dubbed a disappointment by many observers when it was revealed, actually sold twice as many units as its predecessor, the iPhone 4, did in its opening weekend.
Partly because it looks like this next iPhone will represent a real evolution over the 4S, and partly because there is simply pent-up demand for a new iPhone, the momentum trend should also give a big boost to Apple this time around. One analyst, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, has already predicted that the iPhone “5″ will sell as many as 10 million units in its opening weekend.
At that rate it could take 14 days or less for Apple to kick Samsung’s 20 million figure into irrelevance. Samsung’s number therefore might look good, but are in fact a Red Herring.
Read more at TechCrunch