Dear…..(put what ever name you like in here)
I am developing a piece of functionality I believe will be of benefit to anyone using your application. The idea is that your customers will be able to seamlessly exchange data between your system and any other that uses this functionality. This means that anyone, anywhere will be able to exchange documents like invoices and purchase orders without having to re-key data.
That means your customers can reach any business that has an accounting package and help avoid the many errors that arise through human interaction.
Our current business model is based on a per transaction fee basis which we are willing to share with you. This will provide you with an annuity income stream which, as I’m sure you know, is an excellent way to ensure revenue stability. I also believe that customers will willingly pay the fee as it is priced significantly below the cost of manual data entry costs and a fraction of the cost incurred in auditing or repairing incorrect transaction records.
In order to do this, I need access to your API and its documentation. If the API is not well documented, we will help you solve that.
Is this something your company would be interested in?
If you’d like more information, then I’d invite you to read my blog where I talk about the value this type of solution provides for everyone.
Yours sincerely.
Typical replies and my interpretation:
- Pay us money and you can have the API (we’re greedy bastards)
- It’s competitive to our solution so no thanks (we’re greedy bastards who want more lock-in consulting)
- Not interested (we don’t understand but won’t tell you that)
- Our API represents our crown jewels (we don’t understand our customer value proposition)
- We don’t want you to have this but we’ll develop it (we want all the IP so f**k off)
- This has been tried before and didn’t succeed (we haven’t noticed the world has changed)
Analysis
- We don’t care about you
- We don’t care about our customers
- Collaboration is something we talk about but don’t believe
- We’re not interested in helping customers with compliance issues but we’ll sell them a tool that assists in error discovery
- We don’t have an ethics policy so our position is totally justified
- We’re the largest player in the market so we don’t need you to help us crush the competition
Can you imagine trying to run a professional accounting practice with these kinds of attitude?
Technorati Tags: compliance, ethics
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Thankfully some software authors publish their APIs and XML schemas quite readily, as well as providing example code for the SOAP calls required to build the interface from the other system or web service. So our response may be untypical, but quite helpful.
Thankfully, some people DO get it. These are the oft unsung heroes of the tale.
We have already developed an API for ebdex Document Exchange. It will be offered free of charge for developers to build interfaces. The intention is to create a sub market around ebdex Document Exchange, where there will be companies who will:
1. develop interfaces
2. integrate clients
3. recruit and enrol clients trading partners
4. provide consultancy services on around ebdex's offerings
5. provide consultancy services for internal change/transformations
6. link with other value added networks (VANs) offering different services
We strongly believe in partnerships. Key part of this strategy is to give access to our technology through open API policy.