VentureBeat - Latest Comments in Billing startup Zuora’s Z-Commerce targets cloud computing

Re: Billing startup Zuora’s Z-Commerce targets cloud computing

taptamus — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 09:14:23 -0000

We are releasing Billing on Salesforce Apex. If you are interested, please send email to info@chikpea.com.

Re: Billing startup Zuora’s Z-Commerce targets cloud computing

Ranjit Nayak — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:32:24 -0000

I have to agree with the comment above that open APIs are great for experimentation and learning. Here is a comment I made a couple of days back on zdnet.

"Cash is no doubt the new black for cloud apps. However, companies considering the use of a third party billing API must proceed with caution.

If developers are introducing a new online service, a billing API is a great way to commence monetization. Developers in a green field company have the liberty to experiment and work with various pricing models if they use a billing API. However this does not come for free since they have to devote time to learning a non-standard third party API, and then design and write software to the API.

For an established company, with well defined business models, an API to experiment with, is secondary and of low importance. Ability to quickly integrate existing assets and streamlining the billing process is of higher importance. Like in the case of green field developers, use of such an API does not come for free. Companies have to dedicate time and effort to learning a non-standard third party API which may be obsolete soon.

Lastly using a so called open API is no different from using Amazon's or Salesforce API. The possibility of a lock-in is not very distant. "

The following is a comment by a member of Google's cloud group. "... , he mentioned an interesting tidbit that I thought members of this forum may have insight into.

The primary concern or frustration he(customer) had about todays cloud offerings/ providers is that they all require specific APIs of some sort. I don't, and can't really, go into depth of the differences in these "APIs", but, his concern was that their application was written for EC2 and if they wanted to move to another cloud provider it would
require a re-write or port. "

At eVapt, the flexibility of our architecture absolves the customer of custom code in their application.

Re: Billing startup Zuora’s Z-Commerce targets cloud computing

vraniga — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:45:30 -0000

IP Applications entire billing solution is exposed via APIs and we have been providing sandboxes to our prospects for many years so they can familiarize themselves with our solution and try the API level integration with their software while they are in Beta.

Our self-serve sandbox has been a great tool for simple subscription billing scenarios. When a subscription services company has deeper requirements as most seem to (such as more complex billing workflows, A/R dunning processes, automated customer communication needs and channel sales strategies) they need some guidance to think through the possibilities, in which case the self service integration model falls short.

Zuora's announcement has shown us an opportunity to provide a version of our capabilities in a website accessible developer self service model. Keep an eye on our website over the next month or so and thanks for the food for thought.