To improve third party innovativeness, in relation to application development, developers often use existing class libraries or frame works by invoking the Application Programming Interfaces (API). APIs enable applications to request other software to perform functions that they may not be able or permitted to access. Not publishing an application’s API, says Josh Waker, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass, "is basically like building a house with no doors. The API for all computing purposes is how you open the blinds and the doors and exchange information." Companies should consider publishing APIs of applications they develop, especially if they expect the applications to last and interact with other applications, Braunstein says.
The API architecture has created a mashed up environment, this has saved developers time from having to find and review the source code of software. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) depends on applications accessing bank or website APIs to enable processing of a transaction. E-commerce consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the internet and other computer networks (1). The e-commerce sector depends heavily on third party innovations for growth and development. Traditionally e-commerce has been between banks and credit card companies, but Bank penetration in Africa at lower than 10 percent in some regions of Africa has hindered e-commerce. GSMA reports that there will be 1.7 billion unbanked customers and these customers will have access to mobile phones (4).
Mobile money has led to increased access to financial services as well as the development of new financial instruments around the world (3). To enable third parties that want to realize the potential of mobile money, research has been carried out to unify the policies and laws that are governing mobile money transactions and the banks to unify the laws; this is because traditionally telecom operators were not involved in the money business. The mobile money platform so far has mainly dealt with sending and receiving money. The introduction of new services of payment for services has been seen that is to say; water and electricity bill payment and DSTV subscription payment, this shows that customers are demanding more than just sending and receiving money. Clearly the telecom companies are not up to task of developing and innovating applications to fill the vacuum. This has not been helped by third party companies finding difficulty in accessing the API for the mobile money system, hence limited interfacing of the mobile applications with third party developed applications, hence low rate of application innovation and creation by third party application developers.
The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the role of API publications play, mobile money APIs, in relation to third party application development.
Figure: The Number of Mashups in the last 6 months (source: www. Programmableweb.com)
This research is carried out because none or limited research has been conducted on the effects created as a result of east Africa mobile operators failing to publish the mobile money API. This is in respect to third party application development in order to leverage the benefits of mobile money.
The objective is to determine the relationship between API Publishing and number of applications developed by third party developers to access the functionality of the published software.
