Mehdi Medjaoui on Javascript as the glue of APIs

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Mehdi Medjaoui on Javascript as the glue of APIs

API Economist:  Congratulations on a successful APIdays San Francisco! You had a great turnout of experts.

Mehdi Medjaoui: Thank you! This was the first time there has been an API conference where all major API vendors contributed their experts as speakers. We had a good mix of experts not only representing start-ups such as Runscope but large companies such as Intel, SAP, and Salesforce. The API economy is vibrant. Every year that passes more APIs are being published and integrated into the apps, websites, and online services we use every day.

API Economist: You founded the first APIdays conference in Europe with events in Paris and Madrid. How did you get inspired?

Mehdi Medjaoui: It all started with our vision at Webshell to help make the glue of APIs that build the programmable web and the Internet operating system. We can make technology the glue but we also need the glue of humans behind the APIs in the real world because ultimately everything is human-powered. That was the inspiration to create an event to gather all of the API influencers and experts together to help advance the API economy. 

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Jeff Meisel on partner APIs, LEGO & SpaceX

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Jeff Meisel on partner APIs, LEGO & SpaceX

  API Economist: Historically, I've always thought of National Instrument as a hardware company, but you guys have been in software for a long time.

Jeff Meisel: Actually, out of the 35 years of our company history, for more than 25 of those we’ve had a heavy focus on our LabVIEW software, released in 1986.  LabVIEW is a graphical programming language which at the time was just available on the Mac, but essentially that kicked off a new era for the company. While some companies focused solely on hardware and others just focused on software, similar to what Apple does in the consumer space, the way we go about solving engineering applications is we believe there's tremendous value in delivering an integrated software and hardware approach.

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Allie Curry on mobile app decision-making for the enterprise

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Allie Curry on mobile app decision-making for the enterprise

 API Economist: What are you seeing in the enterprise when it comes to iOS versus Android?

Allie Curry: We're still definitely seeing a whole lot of iOS. It always seems to be that the main priority is getting an iOS app out first, especially internally. If it's just an app, not a customer facing app, it seems to be more likely that an enterprise is going to be buying iPads for their own employees than they're going to be buying Android tablets. However, there has been a shift recently. Enterprises suddenly want to have an Android app after their iOS app. Some are even starting to look at Windows Phone, but a very, very small amount.

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Paul Greenwell on the importance of the developer community to SaaS

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Paul Greenwell on the importance of the developer community to SaaS

API Economist: Congratulations on launching your new API program at MYOB. What was the strategy behind this launch?

Paul Greenwell: We've had a developer program since 2002. However, as a desktop product, it was really about how to add on solutions and connect to our core accounting system. That was enabled through ODBC, and we've got about 500 active developer partners that actually use ODBC and write solutions that fit into a number of different spaces.

For example, we have a quarterly business activity statement that has to go into the tax department for tax purposes and is required for every small business. A lot of our business partners don't want to have to write and re-implement that. Over the past 20 years, a million businesses have been using our software.

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Samantha Ready on what exactly a developer evangelist does

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Samantha Ready on what exactly a developer evangelist does

​API Economist: What exactly does a developer evangelist do?

Samantha Ready: The way I would describe a developer evangelist is part thought leader and part explorer. On the one hand, we're trying to be on the cutting edge of what's new with the software product and how to use it, and also lead the community in ways that they should be doing development with the platform. It's a blend of taking our skills and then optimizing them for our expertise on the platform, and then also trying to get that information out to the community about how they can be successful on the platform.

When you think about the term "evangelist," often it's associated with religion. What religious evangelists do is they have some dogmatic practice that they want to proclaim to the masses. As developer evangelists, we are passionate about technology and the platform, and we're trying to advocate that to the developer community.

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