Welcome back to our monthly news roundup, where we share top news and stories from the past month. If you’re a skimmer, like many of us these days, we’re going to start bolding key takeaways so you can get the main points at a glance.
At Axway, we believe in an “Open Everything” world: that the best digital experiences will be built on open API platforms, as well as API-fueled MFT and B2B/EDI solutions, which make participation in an ever-expanding ecosystem frictionless. From Open Banking, to Open Healthcare, to Open Everything, those who have the courage to modernize and open up their business have something to teach us about being open to opportunity.
Top stories
Twitter finally announced its plans for an edit button, but there’s a catch: it’ll only be available to (paid) subscribers of Twitter Blue. Read more about how Twitter is being cautious about this roll-out here.
The French government threw its support behind cloud sovereignty last month, with a strong presence at OVHcloud’s latest data center inauguration. Reporter Delphine Dechaux describes how the public authorities’ strong support shows a political inflection that’s increasingly sensitive to data sovereignty.
Optus, Australia’s second largest telecom, reported in September that it had become a victim of a cyberattack which may have compromised customers’ names, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, as well as postal addresses and ID document numbers. Payment detail and account passwords were not compromised.
Anthony Macarayan shares Six key takeaways from the Optus data breach in Frontier Enterprise. Takeaway number one: API security played a role. “While the specific exploit(s) of the recent Optus cyberattack are still unconfirmed, publicly accessible APIs may be a contributing factor,” says Troy Leliard, APAC Solution Architect, Noname Security. “If confirmed, it wouldn’t be surprising, given Gartner’s prediction that APIs will become the most common attack vector in 2022.”
Read about 12 essential best practices for API security here.
Could low-code replace “traditional” coding? A report by Mendix, a low-code application development platform, says business leaders expect low-code to surpass traditional coding by 2024.
The 2022 State of Low-Code notes that low-code has evolved from a crisis technology during the pandemic to a core technology today. It shows a rise in low-code adoption from 77% in 2021 to 94% this year, with four in 10 businesses now using low-code for mission-critical solutions in their business operations.
Read more about the future of low-code on TechRadar.
With Google’s requirement that all Chrome extensions be released with their new API, MV3 (Manifest version 3), starting in January 2023, Chrome users may see their ad blocker extensions stop working next year.
The new API is intended to protect users’ security and privacy as well as offering a boosted performance, but the WebRequest API, which is critical to blocking web content like advertisements, will be eliminated in Chrome’s implementation of MV3. Chrome developers say it’ll severely limit their plugins.
The deadline for enterprises has just been extended retaining Manifest V2 support until January 2024, but personal Chrome users can expect to see support for the MV2 API phase out throughout next year.
AI-powered search API platform provider Algolia announced its acquisition of vector-search vendor Search.io on September 9th, with the goal of improving site search functionality. Search.io’s vector engine enables semantic search, making connections to give better context.
“Consumers question whether keywords are the most effective way for them to search when they’re shopping,” Algolia CEO Bernadette Nixon tells VentureBeat. “What people want is to be able to search as they think.”
Do you know how much data your apps are collecting about you? Ondeck reviewed the privacy details in the Apple App Store for over 200 business apps across 11 categories and rated how much – or how little – data they collect about their users. A recent Pew survey revealed that 57% of Americans are asked to agree to a privacy policy on a weekly basis, yet only 9% read the full contents before accepting the terms.
Unsurprisingly, Facebook Messenger came at the top of Ondeck’s list of most invasive communications apps. Other data-hungry apps include Glassdoor, eBay, Paypal, and Google Drive. Dive into the research here to see if your favorite app made the list and see them grouped by category.
The Library of Congress unveiled its beta Congress.gov API last month, which will provide access to accurate and structured congressional data. In the past, people and entities resorted to screen-scraping or accessing data via bulk downloads, but the API now opens up real-time access to bills, amendments, summaries, Congress, members, the Congressional Record, committee reports, nominations, treaties, and House Communications. Hearing transcripts and Senate Communications are among data endpoints slated to come in the future.
For more on how this API can help spread information about the legislative branch, listen to this podcast episode of Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
Read about the necessity for governments and other critical sectors to open data via APIs here.
Finally, Axway is proud to receive an API Award for Best in Finance APIs at API World 2022, for its Axway Open Banking solution.
The world’s largest API & microservices conference, API World was created with the mission to be neutral and facilitate connections, knowledge, trust, and business within the developer community of API providers and consumers. The API Awards are the definitive awards for the API & microservices industry. This year’s event will take place October 25-27 in San Jose, CA.
Axway Head of Open Banking Eyal Sivan shares his thoughts on the honor:
“The team and I here at Axway launched our solution, simply called Axway Open Banking, in Brazil late last year to great success, resulting in 7 banks selecting us to power their open banking strategies. We have now brought this same successful formula to North America, but we have no intention of stopping there. At Axway, we see open banking as a global movement and we intend to help accelerate its adoption all around the world.
“Moreover, we understand that open banking is as much about the evolution of APIs as it is about the evolution of banking. In fact, we believe that consent-driven data sharing based on open standards is the future of all APIs, not just within banking or finance, but for energy, telecom, healthcare, government and beyond. Some call this world open data – we call it Open Everything, an API-driven future that we are committed to helping build.”
Learn more about the Axway Open Banking platform here.
Axway was also happy to be named a leader in G2’s Fall Reports, which are based on peer product reviews, for our three main product lines: Amplify API Management platform, Managed File Transfer, and B2B Integration platform. Axway Chief Customer Officer Roland Royer takes a look at G2 customer reviews and what they mean to us here.
The business of digital transformation
How do you make a billion dollars with APIs? eBay’s success in monetizing APIs offers some clues.
“All too often, direct monetization (i.e., charging for API access) is what people think about when they think about API monetization,” says Catalyst Erik Wilde. “In the vast majority of cases, however, this monetization model is not a good choice. Instead, think of APIs as something to improve the value that you’re generating with your business.”
Wilde discusses how to power your business with APIs in this blog.
Earlier this summer, Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky said about 10% of global workloads are in the cloud. “Essentially, IT is going to move to the cloud. And it’s going to take a while,” Selipsky told CNBC’s Jim Cramer. “You’ve seen maybe only, call it 10% of IT today move. So it’s still day 1. It’s still early. … Most of it’s still yet to come.”
So, 18 years after AWS launched, we are only at 10% adoption? asks Axway CTIO Vince Padua.
“If you’ve been parsing previous AWS statements on cloud adoption, they are speaking about workloads and NOT revenue splits between cloud and ‘on-premise.’ But if we take the AWS 10% workload adoption vs. analyst estimates of revenue split between cloud and traditional, we are at 10% workload adoption and more than 40% of total IT spending going to the cloud. If I had to guess, I would say it’ll take another 3-5 years for cloud workload adoption to double.”
A bigger question, Padua adds, is to look at the ‘upper bound’ on cloud spending.
“What will slow cloud adoption or cloud spending? One data point to consider is open source: it takes a couple of years (between 350 – 1500 days) before an open source alternative is created, according to the author of a “Time Till Open Source Alternative” analysis.” Given initiatives like the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), it seems inevitable for any commercially successful or critical infrastructure software.”
We talk a lot about the importance of treating APIs as products here at Axway, and for good reason:
“A business-led approach to APIs starts by identifying the end customer and the problem you are solving for them,” Axway CTIO Vince Padua explains. “Your API should be the product you are offering to meet this need.”
Stoplight’s Jason Harmon expands on the concept of API-as-a-product in an OpenAPI Initiative presentation, sharing the key to a successful API program.
Axway Catalyst Brian Otten describes in a Computer Weekly interview how an “API guild” can act as a springboard to embedding the practices of API as a product to address the challenges of API adoption.
“Utilising an API strategy at an enterprise scale needs more than a Community of Practice (CoP). A CoP is effective in introducing transformational technologies like API management but, they do not have a way to ensure they’re ‘operationalised’, especially with a ‘full lifecycle’ approach that starts from the stages of Demand and Ideation all the way to Promotion and Adoption.”
Read more in this feature – Axway: The ‘API Guild’ operationalises us towards API-first.
Developer experience (DX) is an important factor in building good APIs, and part of that is accompanying APIs with comprehensive, useful documentation. Nordic APIs’ Vyom Srivastava shares 5 Examples of API Documentation With Great Developer Experience.
“Proper API documentation is essential,” says Srivastava. “It helps you onboard developers faster, increase the number of integrations, reduce support requests, and enhance customer satisfaction. On the other hand, improper API documentation can frustrate your customers and even lead to lost opportunities.”
Discover four easy ideas for designing a perfect API developer experience.
Supply chain woes are not over yet – a recent survey shows one-third of baby formula users in the U.S. continue to face supply chain issues – but there are signs of improvement as the year winds down to a close. While some expecting an imminent end to supply chain woes have been overly optimistic, Material Handling & Logistics’ Geert De Lombaerde writes things are getting better. In this piece, he offers perspectives on the past year and what’s to come.
As for solutions to supply chain troubles? Some suggest that blockchain could repair our broken global supply chain. And in a Vox Log op-ed, Mourad Jaakou, Amplify General Manager at Axway, describes how APIs offer operational intelligence and can help reduce supply chain costs.
“A solid API strategy helps automate everything that can be automated so teams can focus on their real business,” Jaakou says. “Ensuring that the organization is fully digital and API-enabled will allow organizations to evolve much faster and automate everything that can be automated, so it can focus its resources on solving the most pressing problems it faces.”
Read Jaakou’s article on APIs and the supply chain here (in French).
JB Bentz, Vice President and General Manager, B2B Integration at Axway, points out that so far in his career, it has been predicted that EDI would be made obsolete/replaced by no less than four technology alternatives: yet EDI has proven “extremely resilient and integral to the operation of the global supply chain.”
Because it’s not going anywhere soon, he says in a VMblog article, “businesses looking to incorporate any future EDI/integration technology must be able to bridge between the classic EDI world and new API-driven processes.”
And streamlining EDI and API capabilities to enable a unique and consistent B2B integration experience is the way of the future, adds Axway’s Stass Pertsovskiy.
“Simply put, traditional EDI and B2B integration systems are falling behind in the market,” writes Pertsovskiy. “Enterprises need B2B integration solutions that provide greater flexibility, ultimate reliability, security, scalability, and compatibility with cloud-based ERP systems.”
Read why he believes organizations need to make B2B modernization and B2B integration a priority.
September events
Open Business Factory circle members gathered in Paris to celebrate the end of season 2, with Axway sharing its message of stronger ecosystems and the importance of digital services marketplaces.
Eyal Sivan and Rebeca Polito, Fernando Ferreira, and Claudio Maia from Axway’s LATAM team headed to the Congreso Latinoamericano Tecnología y Negocios America Digital in Santiago, Chile.
The two-day event on September 7-8th featured thousands of attendees and vendors of all stripes from the countries of South and Central America. “It was great to see such variety and enthusiasm,” Sivan said. “Rest assured, we are not stopping in Brazil. Open banking is on the march throughout Latin America and Axway will be there to help make it a reality.”
Teams in Paris held an Axway API Platform workshop hosted by our API experts – in person. The objective: learn how to build and market your own API marketplace and turn your APIs into digital products.
And in Casablanca, Morocco, Axway teammates hosted an event to reconnect with our Moroccan customers and partners, such as Lendys and AC2i, and present the latest innovations and product developments around our API Management, MFT, and B2B solutions. Workshops were also held on challenges related to Finance Transformation and how the new Axway Financial Accounting Hub is helping.
Finally, Trustlink (Pty) Ltd, Famous Brands, and Business France South Africa & Southern Africa joined the Axway event, “Open Everything to create brilliant digital experiences” in Johannesburg. They talked about how businesses can develop outstanding digital experiences with the right platform and technical support, and shared how Axway and Trustlink helped Famous Brands build up their business for success by dealing with a vast amount of data, transactions, and logistics when working with their franchisee base.
Open banking & finance
Many traditional banking institutions have experienced the open banking wave as a threat to their business models, a rupture in their hard-won customer trust. But as Laurent Van Huffel, VP of Financial Services, Open Banking, and FinTech at Axway argues, open banking also offers up a goldmine of actionable intelligence that, if leveraged, can yield rich cross-selling opportunities and beyond.
Read Van Huffel’s article on open Banking use cases in Global Banking and Finance Review.
In a recent Applause article, Open Banking and Payments Innovation expert Dmitrii Barbasura explains how the open banking movement is forging a new future for the finance world.
“Open banking is on the rise in Europe. A quick search on Google Trends demonstrates just how rapidly interest in the term has skyrocketed over the past five years. However, we are currently only witnessing the beginning of a phenomenon that will revolutionise financial services. Exactly who will benefit the most from open banking is widely speculated; my money is on the tech giants — here’s why.”
Discussing key topics like the impact of PSD2 on financial services, why open banking isn’t all bad news for retail banks, and how the tech giants could move in, the article presents a great overview of the evolution of the movement, according to Eyal Sivan.
The rise of open banking brings the “buy vs build” discussion front and center, as financial institutions grapple with new initiatives. They want to increase revenue streams and improve customer experiences, but does it make more sense to purchase a software solution or build a custom solution in-house?
Axway Head of Open Banking Eyal Sivan joined Ville Sointu and Pål Krogdahl on Fintech Daydreaming recently, and right off the bat they went deep into the philosophy of open banking. They end up making a full tour around definitions, regulation, and actual use cases just to round it up in time to talk about the future of it all. You can watch the episode here.
People & culture
Wonder what it’s like to work at Axway? Our Griffins at Work series will introduce you to our people as they share stories about all the things that make Axway an incredible place to work, grow, and succeed.
This month, we meet Mariya Barova of Dublin, Ireland. In her substantial tenure with Axway, Maryia not only moved between roles but also between countries, chasing exciting new challenges to continuously grow in her technical role.
Plus, see why Axway’s Dublin team took on a large-scale gardening project with their friends and colleagues in our newest series, Griffin Heroes, which is dedicated to sharing stories about exceptional employees’ roles, lives, and ongoing commitment to supporting Axway’s mission, vision, and values.
Finally, learn more about the Axway culture on our Welcome the Jungle profile.
What we’re listening to
Axway VP of Healthcare and Life Sciences Ruby Raley shares career advice on the Sales Lead Dog podcast this month.
“Every time you move to a new seat in your professional career, you always have to remember that what brought you to that seat might not take you to the next level,” Raley says.
An early lesson learned in her career? “Be careful not to oversell- I like to create and envision and you can get too far ahead of your product team and too far ahead of your organization,” Raley adds.
Listen to the podcast episode or read the transcript here.
Don’t miss the latest episode of Mr. Open Banking, where Eyal Sivan speaks with MX Chief Advocacy Officer Jane Barratt about the U.S. “Made in America” model of open banking.
“That really is the fundamental difference between the U.S. and other places, is that we have a very, very broad base of open banking datasets that are available,” says Barratt. “So you can be a lot more creative and innovative in terms of how to put that data to use in the marketplace. So being less prescriptive has definitely led to more innovation within the U.S.”
Find the Mr. Open Banking podcast episode here.
You can also catch recaps of episodes 13 and 14 of the Transform It Forward podcast, hosted by Axway CMO Paul French: from the war for talent and refining workforce needs to a new perspective on the retail world and where it could be headed in the future.
Just for laughs
Let’s end on a humorous note, shall we? Services Director Anca Gratiana Soimu asked Griffins – that’s what we call ourselves here at Axway – for their best haiku on cloud readiness, and they did not disappoint:
Datacenter less.
Containers, as fallen leaves.
Last version? Installed.
By Gwenael Kergunteuil, Senior Customer Success Manager
Move to Cloud easy?
Yes, if you keep to standards
Custom code not good
By VP of Northern Europe Services Steve Shorthouse
Cloud is so simple
You just leave it all with us
And enjoy your life
By EMEA Customer Success Director Louise England
Finally, Principal Customer Success Manager Hamed Ouaret shared this gem, borrowed from Onsi Fakhouri:
Here is my source code.
Run it on the Cloud for me.
I do not care how.
That about covers it for our September News Round-up, thank you for reading. You can always find the latest Axway news in our Newsroom, and stay tuned for more API and digital transformation headlines next month!
Driving business value from APIs can be hard. Discover the top 4 API challenges enterprises are facing here.