Alcatel-Lucent acquires ProgammableWeb, pushes deeper into developer ecosystem

There's a puzzle being built by Alcatel-Lucent, one where an application development ecosystem will eventually reside on the network. Slowly, the company is putting together pieces of this puzzle to drive toward that goal.

Today, the company will announce that it has acquired ProgrammableWeb, a repository of Web APIs used by  developers for web, mobile and other apps for both consumers and businesses.

As the next piece of the puzzle, the acquisition builds on the company's other app development announcements, including a suite of services for developers in December and a toolset, testing sandbox and distribution system for apps in February. Today's move brings an already established ecosystem of developers and APIs into the mix. In a statement, Laura Merling, vice president of Alcatel-Lucent’s global developer strategy, said:

If you look at any organization that launches an API, you quickly realize that the one thing the most successful APIs have in common is a vibrant developer ecosystem. Our goal is to protect the uniqueness and independence of ProgrammableWeb as an API repository and developer resource, while adding beneficial technologies and service provider relationships to the mix for everyone’s benefit.

ProgrammableWeb, which will continue to operate as a separate entity, maintains a repository of some 2,000 Web APIs and a developer community that numbers in the hundreds of thousands. It also brings API monitoring services, API trial services and automated API updates. It also provides the company with some data - API usage patterns, for example.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.