New Report: API and Data Exchange Evaluation Framework

Here's the second report in this week's one-two punch of in-depth resources to help you compare software applications!

We're excited to pre-release a new report from Idealware and NTEN: Getting Your Systems Talking: A Framework to Evaluate APIs and Data Exchange Features (free registration required)

This report provides a detailed look at the factors that go into a solid API or other mechanism for data exchange. There's an overview article that discusses the considerations, but we go way beyond that: Paul Hagen provides a detailed evaluation framework and rating scheme that will allow someone with a reasonable technical background to compare and score the solutions provided by different software applications.

While this report is a little more technical than most of our resources, it's critical infrastructural stuff. Data access is a vital part of a software offering - if you can't get programmatic access to the data, you'll be faced with substantial limitations when trying to integrate it with other applications or create new views. The evaluation framework in this report allows us - or you, or anyone reasonably technical - to compare data access features in an apples-to-apples way.

The framework was a substantial effort, and we had a lot of help. Paul Hagen did all of the heavy lifting, and NTEN, Beaconfire, and Jacobson Consulting Applications provided invaluable financial support. We also relied on substantial contributions of time and expertise from technical leads at Beaconfire, Jacobson Consulting Applications, Forum One Communications, and Database Designs. Thanks to all - I'm excited by the result.