The Grand Horizon of Embedded Commerce Services
Todd Gould, PresidentLoren Data CorpAlan Wilensky, AnalystbizQuirkAbstract by A.D. WilenskyThis monograph explores the mid-market adoption of electronic commerce communications services.Taking a page from Loren Data Corp's ECGridOS Communications API, (a flexible set of services for integrating EDI communications into applications), we posit an imaginative and expansive set of APIservices suitable for hosted commerce platforms.Software as a Service models are starting to have an effect on the adoption of lightweight, specializedcommerce services; a perceptible move towards a services model (SAAS, PAAS, IAAS) is changing theway small and medium businesses run capital line applications.Web Services APIs (application programing interfaces) figure prominently in offering the types of embedded services that cloud platforms consume in order to expand theircommerce communicationsrepertoire. Services Registries (compendiums of related APIs), could play a role in delivering suchservices to this market. Companies who field these systems are prodigious consumers of 3rd party APIs.A target market therefore exists for providing e-commerce communications services to these hostedservices providers.Some of this optimism is tempered by market perceptions of EDI services as unfit for agile commerce.Some of these opinions come from savvy developers eager to pioneer alternatives, some from EDI virginsmerely seeking a easier path to electronic trade. Either way, there are perception issues, many groundedin reality, and there shall be opportunities to address them with an eye towards innovation.Colleagues may differ over technical issues; all in good time. If past experiences are any indication, weshall see thought-leaders, laggards, and innovators. There may arise a Utopian, cohesive registry, or several competitors may overlap. It is a big industry, an almost unlimited opportunity, and a new way tocreate as yet unheard of services via combining APIs.Analyst's look down the adoption curve and discern the dynamics of product uptake, whiletechnologyproviders focus on product creation and delivery; neither owns a crystal ball, yet somehow the partnershipis productive. A portion of these concepts form a portion of Loren Data Corp's malleable product roadmap.We are pleased to share these musings with the community of VANs, tool-smiths, platform providers andOEM's. We welcome the considered criticism of colleagues, and hope that all will be engaged in thefuture of open commerce services.
Old Problems and New Markets
Never did I not exist, nor did you nor these kings. Nor shall we ever cease to exist in the future.
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Bhagavad Gita 2.11 and 2.12
The problems of partner communications remain with us, particularly in the mid market. Exchanging databetween partners, creating streamlined trading agreements, and handling transaction exceptions aresome of the challenges facing SME's. These problems are long standing and perpetually irksome for allenterprise classes, and the questions is, 'at what cost can these issues be addressed'?Don't let the hype surrounding cloud computing obscure its potential for providing valuableservices tothe SME.Mid market commerce is suited to cloud platforms, because data access, translation, andprocess orchestration are delivered at a fraction of the costof licensed applications. Most platformproviders work with an impressive cadre of 3rd party web services via public APIs, while PAAS (Platformas a Service) environments rival well established IDE's for custom code and UI craft.Beyond the supply chain, we see the development ofworkforce and task management, subcontractor RFP, accounting, and plenty of variations on lightweight floor inventory control and POS. Supply chainfunctions are there too, some rivaling the robustness of costly integration servers. In short, this is a richmarket.These platforms will not totally eliminate the problems of partner peering, enabling open trade, andliberating data from rigid tabular confines, but they are certainly the next place to tackle the problems of data transparency.Having partially addressed the economics of applications delivered at-scale, the cloud operators are onthe lookout for broadly applicable solutions for their subscribers, perhaps via partnerships with commercemessaging providers that will provide the path to expanded services.
Rapid Services Creation and Delivery
Seemingly impressive partnerships and strategic agreements abound within the B2B cloud ecosystem -most being enabled by external APIs. A popular on-line GL application might connect to a plethora of external services for project management, content management, logistics, etc.These partnerships are often quick to form - particularly when API access is provided at low or no cost asa value add. While these architectures may not be paragons of standardization, they prove that newservices can be mashed-up and delivered when opportunity calls. Agility is the watchword whenmastering the 'art of rapid services'.Classic EDI providers take note that a few of these companies have forged alliances with retailers andindependent service companies. Not all of the programs have been successful, and very few wouldsurvive a direct comparison to capital line applications within the EDI orbit. However, this trend will onlycontinue to gather steam. The cautionary tone is not to alarm, but to inspire.Some of these companies provide free API access with limitations. Similar to open source models, theseproduct strategies bring in business via free API access, and monetize via extended and premium serviceand support packages.Lessons:
•Create simple to use services.•Create a flat, flexible pricing model•Foster an ecosystem that encourages experimentation and mash-ups.•Make it easy for SAAS and PAAS providers to adopt your API, they are your new channel.(consider and adapt to their run time environment)In the enterprise, there is also much to say about the other prime adopters of API's - SOA and ESB; wewill save that for another time.
Classic Challenges & The Business of Web Services
The longstanding challenges are still with us. In spite of the fact that experienced EDI providers have somuch to contribute, there is too wide a gap between sophisticated e-commerce system integrationsolutions and the EDI reseller offerings.Agile competitors, poised to occupy the solution space, could just as easily be partners through acoordinated effort to build and market a comprehensive commerce services registry. Offering a palette of fine-grained commerce services that solve the problems of partner peering, data interchange, andcommunications, is the grand vision.Here is a run down of the proposed API families. Todd can provide special insight into ECGridOS -currently the only Web Services API for embedding EDI communication within applications.
The Business of Web Services
Marketing a web service is a different ball game. Sales targets are technical staff members that mustbecome internal advocates. Time must be allocated for prospective clients to test and experiment. Sector uptake in the early days requires evangelism, with the best strategy being a cooperative marketingapproach coordinated amongst providers adhering to standards of interoperability. Creating a communityof developers and advocates that use Web Services to deliver solutions does not occur overnight.There are distinctions between trivial and non-trivial API flavors. Web Services with 90+ functions arequite different in character from a REST API with a dozen functions. APIs are a challenge to demonstrateat trade events without a supporting library of training assets and democode.There are many contemporary Web Service registries; some are free, some are vendor paid. Many of these directories are true 'central registries', where the infrastructure for serving, scaling, billing, andmetrics is shouldered by the registry. Industry consortia often catalog and refer members, but do not hostor manage accounts. Some industry organizations are starting to think about services continuity - allowingone API provider to backstop a competitor, while keeping client data safe.
The EDI Communications API
Loren Data Corp's ECGrid
®
is well know in the VAN industry as a trusted communications service for brokering traffic and routes. ECGrid solves a specific problem for a special class of electronic commerceservice provider by removing the operational and administrative burden of inter-network messageminding. For application level access, however, there was no way to integrate EDI message transit. ToddGould saw that FTP and AS2 connection methods were lacking in flexibility, and that at some pointhosted commerce portals would need more direct control over message delivery and partner
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Grand Horizon
This monograph explores the mid-market adoption of electronic commerce communications services. Taking a page from Loren Data Corp's ECGridOS Communications API, (a flexible set of services for integrating EDI communications into applications), we posit an imaginative and expansive set of API services suitable for hosted commerce platforms.
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