GsmoneapiWhy should you be locked in to a SMS API? Why should you be forced to continue using a SMS messaging platform because you built your application on their proprietary API?

What if there was a way you could build a SMS application using a “standard” API so that you could move it to another provider if you wanted to do so?

At Voxeo, we take our core value of “Unlocked Communications” extremely seriously… we want our customers to continue with us because they choose to do so, not because they are forced to do so by closed, proprietary protocols that lock them in.

When we started building SMSified, we did start out creating our own REST-based API because we couldn’t find a suitable open standard we could use. But then we came across the GSM Association’s OneAPI … and rapidly decided to change our design to be based on OneAPI:

http://www.gsmworld.com/oneapi/

Here’s the thing… the goal of OneAPI is that you can write your application for one compliant platform, and then potentially move it to any other compliant platform.

Goodbye, Lock-in!

From the GSMA page, here’s the goal:

The GSMA OneAPI initiative defines a commonly supported set of lightweight and Web friendly APIs to allow mobile and other network operators to expose useful network information and capabilities to Web application developers. It aims to reduce the effort and time needed to create applications and content that is portable across mobile operators.

So… write an application once, and have it work with multiple providers.

With that goal in mind, our engineering team went to work and the result is that if you look at the SMSified API Reference, you’ll see that it very faithfully follows the OneAPI SMS RESTful API.

While the OneAPI initiative within the GSMA is still evolving and commercial deployments and trials are still underway, we’re extremely pleased to help support the growth of this effort. If we can collectively make writing SMS applications as easy as other web applications, it will help grow the overall ecosystem of SMS developers and ultimately lead to better applications for all of us.

Check out the platform you are using for creating SMS applications –

are you locked in to using that platform?

If so, maybe it’s time to think about a better way?

Resources:

©2011 SMSified. All Rights Reserved.

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