MuleSoft Buys Programmable Web From Alcatel-Lucent, Marking The Telco’s Departure From A Core API Community

MuleSoft has acquired Programmable Web from Alcatel-Lucent effectively marking the telecommunication company’s exit from a core API community.

For MuleSoft, a data integration company, the deal provides a vehicle for it to offer what it calls a GitHub for APIs that will integrate its APIhub with Programmable Web’s API database and rich editorial focus on the correlating market space. For Programmable Web, it provides a stable home, a place where it can extend its API database to a community that can build out apps using the MuleSoft APIhub platform.

Programmable Web will continue to maintain its blog and API database. It will remain an independent entity and connect with the MuleSoft APIhub. The hub will serve as  a place for getting the support developers often need when integrating APIs. Developers will collaborate on the APIs, similarly to the way a service like GitHub works.

The larger goal is to help companies connect its legacy, on-premise systems to third-party services and platforms. Companies need to get their data out into the market. APIhub with Programmable Web will help accomplish that.

MuleSoft essentially provides a message bus and a cloud platform for managing data integrations and connecting data points to services such as Workday or Salesforce.

Alcatel-Lucent acquired Programmable Web in 2010. At the time, Alcatel-Lucent had hopes for fostering a developer ecosystem and build out its own API management strategy. But the effort never really seemed to take hold. Hopefully, it will be a different story with Programmable Web part of MuleSoft.