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To: chaz who wrote (31934)	9/20/2000 5:21:55 PM
From: Thomas Mercer-Hursh	Respond to of 54805

SAP and Siebel do both provide APIs to their systems ... SAP in particular makes quite a point of it. This certainly helps compared to having no API at all, but it is only a start since the technology of everyone's API is different as is the model of the business objects. One notable example of the latter, for example, is that a single request will return all information about a customer in one package, but another one will take 20 some calls to get the full set. A number of vendors are talking about or actually working on XML APIs, which should facilitate the interface process, but even then it is just the very tippy tip of the iceberg. Each application's API has to be "translated" to provide a common ground, APIs need to be created for legacy and in-house applications, the multiple applications need to be coordinated with business process logic, and typically one needs to bring up a whole new application as well that was the stimulus for all that. So, yes, having the vendors provide an API helps. Having them more or less trying to conform to common business object models helps more. But, at best, this is only a couple percent of the overall task in most cases.