Alcatel-Lucent has unveiled its first packaged API (Application Programming Interfaces) bundles, and an associated revenue sharing model, which it claims to transform application development by eliminating upfront costs for developers and opening new revenue opportunities for service providers.
The company has also launched a new business and application modeling tool to help developers and service providers better manage their overall applications.
The bundled API blends service provider and third party application capabilities to support the easy creation of new applications; and enables a new revenue share model intended to transform service provider networks into an application development platform, Alcatel-Lucent said.
According to Alcatel-Lucent, the vertical API bundles include three social bundles supporting the creation of new mashups and APIs included are SMS, advertising, location, virtual goods, credit card and billing.
Alcatel-Lucent is also providing developers access to beta versions of social API bundles within a virtual sandbox for non-commercial use in a laboratory type environment. Developers can access the bundles via the company’s Open API Service without the upfront API fees.
To support the bundled API approach, Alcatel-Lucent has also expanded its Dashboard tool to provide developers with a personalised and detailed view of their applications and end users including, number of downloads, type of transactions, application performance, and revenue generation from campaigns and apps stores.
Johnson Agogbua, head of application enablement solutions for Alcatel-Lucent, said: “The business model benefits everyone across the value chain. Whereas service providers did not share in an application’s revenue before, they now gain new sources of revenue from ad network or virtual goods applications. They can invest that income back into their network, which in turn supports new services innovation.”
