Ok, Kintera announces it’s open… they even have a call about it at NTEN and even Michelle Murrain gets a little excited and Mr. Integration Proclamation himself calls it a good thing. But it’s been five weeks since the announcement and there’s still no documentation for the API. Please, Kintera, it’s bad enough that you’re still losing money but at the very least, release the docs! With or without the developer program, we have no way of understanding whether not we should even apply for the program. It would be a great media opportunity for Kintera to release the documentation because it will just get all the developers abuzz with the possibilities.
On the other hand, there’s the Fortress of Solitude that is Blackbaud. The we-will-let-no-blog-post-release-until-it’s-time Blackbaud. There’s a little shadow play going on where they hire on-demand people on their board, buy a smaller SaaS-enabled vendor, but no docs, no announcements about an open API. And then I get THIS e-mailed to me straight from Shaun Sullivan. It’s a website that allows you to demo Blackbaud Enterprise CRM. It’s an amazing demonstration of how far Blackbaud has come in terms of implementing Raiser’s Edge as a Rich Internet Application and even better now that I have entered my entire contacts database in a batch upload to the demo database (just kidding!). Seriously, check it out — we’ve needed more technology demos like this in our sector for a LOOONG time. Aren’t IT people ever tired of nonprofit software vendors saying that we have to call them just to see their product? Releasing a demo like this without having to attend a sales pitch should be the norm for nonprofit software vendors.
Folks, the proof has to be in the pudding, developers want and need the API documentation. I kinda like the shadow play too but the suspense is killing me. So the answer so far to the question posed in this article, is NEITHER is very open right now. Kintera wants to play but it’s got to get the docs out to developers if it wants to maximize the competitive advantage that would result from having an increase in mindshare among developers. Imagine the consternation over at Blackbaud if nerds started developing great Kintera web mashups? Imagine the consternation at Convio if Blackbaud developers starting making great Blackbaud web mashups? Blackbaud seems to be waiting on the sideline but the release of the technology demo is certainly a signal to us that an open API launch on their part would certainly be much more thorough than Kintera’s.
Anyway, I think the industry has finally started to shift to norms approaching that in the for-profit industry. I just hope that I don’t have to use words that are prevalent in the for-profit software industry press — like vaporware.
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