Published on the 18/03/2014 | Written by Newsdesk
The MYOB API team is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its AccountRight Live API with more enhancements to the developer programme and an increased public profile for its third party apps…
MYOB’s platform strategy manager, Paul Greenwell, said the company has had a developer programme for quite a few years, but about 18 months ago it changed tack decided to really step up its efforts on that front. MYOB created Greenwell’s role of platform strategy manager to oversee the API product and evangelist team. It has also re-launched its developer programme; launched a new developer portal; and recently appointed a new sales and a new marketing function specifically to support third party add-on offerings. In the 12 months since its first API launched, the programme has grown from just over 65 developers to more than 800 and the number of add-ons has risen to 70 across 20 categories.
Chief technology officer Simon Raik-Allen says he is pleased with the success and expects appetite for the API to grow noticeably with the next big round of enhancements, due in Q2.
“We’ve been enjoying great traction with the AccountRight Live API and great feedback that it’s easy to use.”
With all these changes and enhancements, Greenwell admits he was surprised by comments from industry commentators attending MYOB’s recent February roadshow in which suggestions were made that the company was not focusing on developing an add-on ecosystem.
“It did take me by surprise, because my role is to oversee the ecosystem and the API started 18 months ago. And we’ve been working really hard. At last September’s conference we made a splash about the API. I guess that we take for granted now that we are out there and in the cloud and have this ecosystem!”
He said that MYOB is moving into more and more “connected services” but its strategy is to un-ashamedly look at the mass market opportunities and create core functionality that is needed by all businesses. Third-party add-ons, therefore, can be niche products or specialise in a specific industry vertical.
“It’s a win-win for the developer because they don’t have to provide functionality that is already there and they can focus on their value-add.”
Greenwell said that his focus this year is all about making MYOB’s third party developers more successful and the new sales and marketing roles will work within the evangelist team to do that. The re-launched free developers’ programme is designed so that developers can stay on the free version and be really successful or can pay for the next tier up and get additional software entitlements. In addition, the proportion of MYOB’s cloud accounting clients using third-party add-ons has grown 38 percent so far this year and continues to accelerate with the re-vamped MYOB add-on gallery website drawing much of the initial interest.
“We are just rolling out a certification programme at the moment too,” Greenwell added. Currently listed third-party apps are checked to make sure that the integration with MYOB works well and they are not corrupting any data. The new certification programme will look at the products from more of a quality and usability perspective and will certify those that make the grade.
